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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25847449">Dæmon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthatisterrible/pseuds/andthatisterrible'>andthatisterrible</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Gods and Monsters [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Person of Interest (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Demons, Elemental Magic, F/F, Fae &amp; Fairies, Urban Fantasy, Warlocks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:26:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>84,877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25847449</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthatisterrible/pseuds/andthatisterrible</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Set shortly after the events of Wǣrloga. Root and Shaw are back in New York City and on the trail of the artifact that Shaw promised the fae she'd retrieve for them. Complications arise and just keep right on arising until it seems like every unnatural creature in all the worlds is after them. And of course, in between the fighting and politics they have to navigate their way through their not-relationship and bang a lot while doing so.</p><p>This is the sequel to Wǣrloga which I'd highly recommend you read first. This fic is also already completely written and about 80k words. New chapters will post Tuesdays and Saturdays.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Root/Sameen Shaw, Root/Sameen Shaw/The Machine, Root/The Machine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Gods and Monsters [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1766113</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>192</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>182</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. A Rude Awakening</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>After I chose the title I vaguely recalled that some people associate the word dæmon with the 'his dark materials' series. This fic has nothing to do with that series in any way.</p><p>Like the summary said, this fic is already completely finished and will be posted twice a week so there's no danger of it getting abandoned.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air. Shaw didn't see the fire at first, but when she turned around she saw the distant glow, far away but closing rapidly across the dry, brown grass.</p><p>Usually the overwhelming smell of smoke like this reminded her instantly of Fairfield and her fight against the warlock that had destroyed the whole town, but this time the whole scene felt so alien, so surreal that it barely crossed her mind. She slowly turned in a circle and searched the horizon for any sign of a way out of the tall grass, but the field seemed to go on endlessly in every direction. In the distance, the red glow of the fire loomed closer.</p><p>She had a lot of questions about her current situation--like how she'd gotten here, and where exactly here was--but getting to safety came first. There was no discernable wind and therefore no way to know where embers from the fire might blow, so she set off away from it, figuring that sooner or later she'd find something other than this field and maybe a way out. Occasionally she glanced back over her shoulder, and then sped up; the fire seemed to be gaining on her rapidly.</p><p>She wasn't sure how long she ran through the tall grass before she came to a sudden halt, stopped short by what she saw in front of her: another glowing red line in the distance. The fire was in front of her as well, and on both sides, closing in.</p><p>Well, there was no helping it then. She was going to have to find a way through.</p><p>A crunching sound different from the roaring crackle of the oncoming flames made her spin around. There, striding forwards in slow, inevitable steps was the most massive brown bear she'd ever seen, walking right on the leading edge of the flames, like it was pulling the fire behind it. From beneath its sooty coat, its ribs shone through as fiery curves, and swirls of smoke rose from the ground wherever its enormous paws touched the dirt. The most disturbing part of all, though, was its head, which was only a bear skull grafted onto the rest on its body.</p><p>Shaw stared at it, the approaching fire momentarily forgotten, and it turned its head to stare back, bony eye sockets full of flames burning into her. It opened its skeletal mouth and let out a sound no animal should ever make, an alien bellow that vibrated through her bones.</p><p>Shaw took one step back and then another, the urge to run rising. The monstrous bear paced towards her, seeming to cover twice the ground it should have with every step. She stopped retreating and stood her ground. Some barbecued bear wasn't going to make her run.</p><p>It stopped right in front of her, its exposed teeth inches away from her face. She could see the hairline fractures in the off-white bone of its skull and feel the heat from the fire in its eyes.</p><p>"Fuck off," she said, her voice rough from the smoke.</p><p>The fire in its eyes seemed to leap out at her, roaring over everything and obscuring the world and--</p><p>Her eyes flew open and she took a deep breath, extremely annoyed that she hadn't realized it was a dream and even more annoyed by whatever had caused it because of all the things bouncing around in her subconscious she was pretty sure a fire-bear wasn't one of them. It was cold in her loft and she shivered, her skin drenched in sweat that was rapidly cooling. There was a lingering smell in the air, like a bonfire, and when she gingerly sniffed her hair, the smoke smell definitely was there.</p><p>So, not a normal dream then.</p><p>She sat up and looked around her loft, the single room still dim in the early morning light. On the other side of the room, as far from the cold drafts of the windows as possible, was an air mattress tucked into a corner. On it, tangled in a mess of Shaw's sheets, Root slept on, blissfully unaware of Shaw's sudden awakening. In the whole time Shaw had known her, Root had never gotten enough sleep, but apparently she made up for that by sleeping like the dead when she had the chance.</p><p>Shaw made an effort to be quiet as she slipped out of bed and crossed the floor to the bathroom. She wasn't used to having guests by any stretch of the imagination, and having to factor in another person's needs when doing something as simple as walking across the room was frustrating.</p><p>The tile floor in the bathroom was colder than the wood of her loft floors had been, and the single light overhead was too harsh.These were things she hadn't noticed until someone else had pointed them out and that now she couldn't stop noticing no matter how hard she tried.</p><p>She splashed cold water on her face and wiped some of the sweat off her neck. What the hell had that dream been?</p><p>The most obvious guess would have been something the fae had cooked up. It had been three weeks since she'd gotten back from that shitty little town in the middle of nowhere where she'd made a bargain with the fae to find an artifact for them in exchange for getting herself, Root, and Reese to safety. Making a deal with the fae was always a terrible idea, guaranteed to get humans in more trouble than they could have imagined going in, but it had been that or let Root bleed to death and Shaw hadn't been willing to let that happen.</p><p>But it wasn't like she hadn't been looking for the damned artifact in the last three weeks. In fact, she'd been doing everything she could to find it, just like she'd promised. It was unlikely that the fae gave partial credit for effort though. Still, the dream hadn't felt like fae magic. Their magic was all mysterious and dangerously tantalizing. That dream had been something quite different. It had felt like something old, and powerful, and haunting.</p><p>Since she was already awake and didn't think she'd have much chance of falling back asleep, she turned on the shower, figuring she might as well get an early start on things. Today she and Reese were going to take care of what should be a relatively simple job just to keep themselves in rent money. Root was supposed to be looking into a new lead on the fae artifact and there wasn't much they could do to find it until she came through with that, so a quick side job wouldn't hurt anyone.</p><p>There was a second bottle of shampoo in the shower now, something that smelled fruity and tropical that Shaw couldn't imagine a sane person wanting their hair to smell like. Even if Root hadn't been the only person who could have left it here, Shaw would still have known it was hers because she'd inhaled way too much of the terrible smell when she'd had Root's hair in her face last night while they'd been...doing research. There was also a second toothbrush on her sink and a handful of other toiletries that had started to creep out of the little bag Root had them in to take over all the empty space. It was invasive and irritating to have someone else's stuff in her space, but she hadn't said anything because some part of her knew that if she did Root would never leave anything out of place again and then maybe all her stuff would just be gone one day and that would also be bad in a different way. Shaw didn't want a permanent...guest, but she didn't want Root permanently absent either.</p><p>Root hadn't budged when Shaw left the bathroom wrapped in a towel. One of Root's arms was hanging off the edge of the bed and, as Shaw watched, her fingers twitched occasionally. Maybe she was having a dream. Hopefully not one about bears.</p><p>Shaw didn't bother to get dressed in the bathroom--Root had seen her naked plenty of times (though it was surprising she didn't instantly wake up the second Shaw was naked in the vicinity) and even though she didn't have curtains, there were no buildings tall enough across from hers to let someone see in the window (fortunate considering how much sex they had in here).</p><p>She dressed warmly and armed herself with both guns and infused artifacts. It was freezing out and she'd only kind of dried her hair, so she pulled a beanie on and hoped for the best. She'd rather spend the last bit of time she had left before she was supposed to meet up with Reese getting a greasy breakfast sandwich than drying her hair.</p><p>She looked back at Root one last time before she left. Hopefully she was having better dreams than Shaw'd had. Maybe Shaw would ask her about the dream later, see if she or her god knew anything about giant fire bears. Or maybe not. Maybe it wasn't the sort of dream she should share. Whatever the fuck that meant.</p><p>She shut the door and left to go find Reese.</p>
<hr/><p>Root could tell she was alone before she opened her eyes. It was a side-effect of the powers she shared with her god--or perhaps a perk--that she always had some type of awareness of living things in her immediate surroundings now, and the loft felt empty to a sense she didn't have a name for. She opened her eyes and lifted her head just enough to see Shaw's neatly made bed.</p><p>Shaw was gone for the day then. She'd sort of hoped to see her this morning, but maybe she'd needed some space. It was an adjustment for both of them to share the loft like this, one which wasn't even strictly necessary as Root's guilty conscience reminded her.</p><p>Things had felt weird after the first few days, not in the least because of Shaw's lack of anywhere else to sleep but the one bed. Root might not have had more than a handful of possessions left to her name, but it hadn't been hard to reallocate some funds to an account she could access to help fix that problem.</p><p>Shaw hadn't said much when she'd packed up her things the fifth night and said she was moving to a hotel--no sign of relief or disappointment that Root could have read into. The first hour in the very fancy hotel room Root had procured for herself had absolutely been a relief for her. Alone at last for the first time in weeks. Of course, She had still been with her in some ways, but She seemed to know when to let Root have some time to herself.</p><p>The luxurious tub and soft towels had been exactly what Root had been dying for. The towels at Shaw's place had been fine, but she'd only had a shower stall and Root had felt like an intruder the entire time and hadn't fully been able to relax. In the hotel she could sprawl across the bed and order tons of overpriced room service and watch tv.</p><p>It had taken her about an hour after the bath to get restless. Her god was busy with something back on Her own world, hacking felt too easy these days, and she hadn't had any components she could have used for crafting gadgets or infused artifacts with her. After so much activity recently it had felt jarring to suddenly be still. And a little lonely.</p><p>Shaw hadn't looked surprised when she'd shown back up at her door later that night with an apologetic grin, a terrible story about all the hotels being full for the holidays, an inflatable air mattress, and an unnecessarily expensive bottle of whiskey as a peace offering. But she hadn't turned her away despite all the eye rolls and grumbling (and Root thought maybe there'd even been a hint of a smile on Shaw's lips when she'd realized she had completely failed to account for bringing her own sheets and pillows).</p><p>And yet the feeling of guilt persisted.</p><p>So far she'd been dealing with it by making sure she did what she'd said she was there to do: help locate the artifact that Shaw had promised the fae she'd find in return for their help in getting Root to safety.</p><p>She got ready to head out as quickly as she could, only pausing to borrow one of Shaw's scarves on her way out the door. Her breath misted in the air as she hurried to the nearest subway station. Winter was always cold in the city, but it felt like it was putting in extra effort this year. She'd spent the last week tracking down the easy leads--the ones most likely to turn up results--and struck out. It was like the artifact had vanished.</p><p>The subway turnstile screen flickered and changed from "Swipe metrocard" to "Go" when she ran her hand over it. It was almost too easy now with Her powers combined with Root's own knowledge. It felt a little cheap to use her powers for something as simple as ripping off the MTA, but it wasn't like she had any intention of paying with her own money anyway.</p><p>The station was much warmer than it had been outside and she probably could have taken the scarf off but it smelled faintly of Shaw's shampoo so she left it on. It was a small luxury she allowed herself.</p><p>It was strange being around so many people again after the last year of her life--the stay in the bureau's cells, the several months spent hiding off the grid to avoid bureau agents, and then her residence in that big, empty house with no one but Her to talk to. Now, on a crowded subway, she felt boxed in, almost claustrophobic.</p><p>"I don't suppose you have any other houses in the middle of nowhere?" she asked quietly. The nice thing about New York was that no one was going to notice or care if she talked to herself on the subway. There wasn't exactly a response from Her, not with words anyway. It was more like Root suddenly knew the answer to her question, like the knowledge had been stored in her brain for her. Sometimes She did talk with words, but this method was faster and seemed to be more natural for Her. The information sharing was Her native tongue as far as Root could tell. It worked the same way with her sometimes horse, Bacchanalia, and she suspected Shaw could communicate with Grim that way as well even if she didn't know she was doing that. (Root wasn't inclined to tell her that part--much better to let her figure it out in time on her own).</p><p>She really missed Bacchanalia, but the city was no place for a horse.</p><p>The rattle of the subway was familiar and soothing and helped her not think about the press of people in the car. She looked out the window as the dark, metal pillars of the subway tracks flew by. It was easy to imagine that she saw things out there in between the pillars.</p><p>Maybe sometimes she did. The subway was tricky like that and the city had been...odd since she'd returned. Odder than usual. She couldn't quite put her finger on the change, and She hadn't seen New York before and had no point of comparison.</p><p>She had to transfer twice before she got to her stop, a lesser used station on the local track that was fairly empty at this time in the morning on a weekend. She ignored the signs pointing to the exit and walked down to the other end of the track and behind the last staircase on the platform that had been blocked off for as long as anyone could remember.</p><p>The back wall of the stairs looked unremarkable. Someone had painted some graffiti on the wall, a blue scrawl of a gear with an eye inside it. Meaningless unless you already knew to look for it. She pulled a ring out of her pocket, slipped it on, and then laid her palm flat on the wall against the graffiti. The slightest suggestion of a breeze brushed over her and then a door appeared under her hand. Around her, the subway looked ever so slightly different. Everything was warped almost as if it was underwater.</p><p>She knocked on the door and counted to five before she pushed it open. On the other side was a dim concrete corridor that stretched further than the inside of the staircase would have allowed. Root had never been able to find out who had set this place up, but it was extremely impressive.</p><p>There was a man just inside the door, sitting on a stool to one side. He hastily got up as she entered.</p><p>"Haven't seen you in a while," he said and held up a small device. "New precaution since last time you were here. Bureau is cracking down and we already caught two guys trying to sneak in surveillance tech and a third with a tracker he didn't remember acquiring."</p><p>Root stood passively for the scan as she turned over this piece of news. She'd known the bureau was getting more ruthless in going after fusers, but apparently it was worse than she'd thought.</p><p>"You're clear," the man (whose name Root had long since forgotten) said.</p><p>"Is Harper around?" she asked.</p><p>"Yeah, think she's working on something back in one of the labs."</p><p>"Thanks."</p><p>The corridor split off into a warren of tunnels full of small, windowless rooms. Some of them were locked up tight with artifact-made seals that would do unpleasant things to anyone trying to break in. Others were wide open showing off small bunk rooms and tiny labs with cold, metal tables. It wasn't a welcoming place, but Root had stayed here more than once in the past and had always been grateful for a safe bed to sleep in. Unlicensed fusers might fight each other for resources, but this place was an enforced neutral ground.</p><p>She found Harper in an otherwise empty lab room hunched over something on the table. She barely looked up when Root entered without knocking.</p><p>"Last I heard you broke out of the bureau's special dungeons and vanished off the face of the earth," Harper said by way of greeting. "Wherever you holed up must have been even more off the grid than this place because the bureau was tearing the city apart looking for you."</p><p>"Or maybe the bureau is just incompetent." Root glanced at the project Harper was working on. It looked like an antique pocket watch on a chain.</p><p>"They've got another reward out for you. Strange thing is, they don't want you dead or captured. They only want information on where you are."</p><p>It was definitely unusual, but Root could see the logic behind it. Anyone trying to bring in a warlock alone was likely to wind up dead and potentially send her into hiding. Denton Weeks and his lot wanted to capture her themselves. Were they still working with Greer? She could vividly remember what that cuff Decima had made felt like around her arm and she wasn't in any hurry to experience that again.</p><p>"Maybe they're fans of my work."</p><p>Harper chuckled and finally looked up from her work. "I figured you must be out hunting down an original artifact all this time. Did you find a big prize?"</p><p>Oh, had she ever, but she wasn't going to tell Harper (or anyone else here) about her god. She didn't think warlocks would be welcomed even here.</p><p>"Afraid not, but I'm currently looking for an original artifact. The one Daniel used to have has gone missing and all my leads have run into dead ends."</p><p>"Daniel, the guy who made the stealth artifacts, right? I heard he'd retired."</p><p>Root was very sure that Harper had heard plenty about that. The artifact crafters' community was tiny and everyone in it heard everything about each other. "Any ideas what could have happened to his artifact?"</p><p>"Maybe, maybe not." Harper slid the watch across the table. "Take a look at this."</p><p>Root picked up the metal pocket watch and turned it over in her hands. The blue gems set in the case and that special feeling of heaviness it had in her hand told her it was without a doubt an infused artifact, but there was something odd about it, almost like it was hollow.</p><p>"What's wrong with it?" she asked.</p><p>"I was hoping you could tell me that since you're supposed to be some sort of prodigy with these things."</p><p>Root hadn't been asking Harper though and the answer she got back from Her slipped into her mind.</p><p>"It's burnt out. It's been used up." It was theoretically possible of course but she hadn't heard of it happening more than once or twice. "How old is this?"</p><p>"One of the older ones I've seen, from the first wave of infused artifacts. If they're starting to dry up…." Harper reached for the watch but Root ignored her and kept examining it.</p><p>"It could slow down time for the fuser, for a few seconds only." She'd always gotten hunches about artifact powers when she touched them, but she'd never been able to definitively tell what they could do until recently. Perhaps another benefit of her new warlock powers.</p><p>"You get the problem here, right?" Harper asked impatiently. "If the infused artifacts are starting to reach the end of their lifespan it's going to be a problem."</p><p>"It'll improve business for the crafters." But she could see the problem as well. "And make the bureau extremely motivated to collect crafters and any original artifacts we might have to replenish their own collection."</p><p>"Exactly." Harper reached for the watch again, more forcefully this time, and Root let her take it back. "Unless we can figure out how to recharge them or something."</p><p>"Is that what you were trying to do?" She'd never heard of such a thing being possible, but she'd never tried either.</p><p>"I was looking into it."</p><p>It was an exceptionally community-minded thing for Harper to be doing; she'd always been a loner and looked out for herself first, not unlike Root herself. The drained artifacts must have really shaken everyone up.</p><p>"Do you think the disappearance of Daniel's artifact might be connected to this? Did the bureau take it?"</p><p>Harper hesitated. "No, they don't have it. Someone else took it. Or something else. Jason had it, but he's in the hospital now. His room caught on fire out of nowhere and the artifact vanished at the same time."</p><p>Finally, a lead, though not much of one. "And no one saw anyone come in or out?"</p><p>"Not a thing until the fire alarms went off."</p><p>"I'm going to go take a look."</p><p>"Knock yourself out, but we already went over the whole place." Harper bent back over her watch.</p><p>"Have you tried making a fresh infused artifact out of it?" Root asked. "I'm assuming you don't have the original artifact it was made from."</p><p>"No, would that work?"</p><p>"I'm not sure, but it'd be interesting to find out."</p><p>"I'll think about it."</p><p>Root was almost out the door when she turned back. "Has...does everything feel a little odd lately? Here in the city, I mean."</p><p>Harper shrugged, not looking up. "This city has always been wedged halfway into some other world. Odd is normal here."</p><p>Root left her there and hurried through the halls, trying to recall where Jason had worked here. It turned out to be easier to find than she'd expected because the smell of smoke still hung in the air. Jason's lab was a blackened shell, walls and furniture scorched. She wrinkled her nose as she entered.</p><p>There wasn't enough of a door left to shut, so she settled for getting out of the direct line of sight to the hallway before she pulled her detector from her bag. It was a handy little gadget that let her detect the traces of energy from various types of unnaturals in the area, one of only two in existence. Getting the parts--or ingredients to be more accurate--to make two of them had been an enormous pain in the ass, but she'd hoped that Shaw would appreciate the one she'd given her. Shaw wasn't one for traditional thank you gifts, but something that directly assisted with her job had been acceptable to her. Root wasn't sure if she'd known it was supposed to be a way of saying thank you for stitching her up after she'd been hurt on a mission, but the fact Shaw had liked it had been enough.</p><p>She twisted the dial on her detector and watched the needle jump up. A blue light at the top flashed on and off rapidly and Root stared at it in surprise.</p><p>"How did an elemental get in here?"</p><p>At the nudge from her god, she looked up at the wall to see a small metal vent, the wall around it burnt black. There was no way to be sure it was the entry point, but She seemed to think it was likely.</p><p>"Okay, but why? What would an elemental want with a fae artifact?" Elementals usually tried to stay clear of humans and their problems and, to the best of Root's knowledge, no other species but humans could use artifacts.</p><p>Her god was silent; She didn't know either.</p><p>"Any idea where I could find one?"</p><p>There might be a few places to start looking, She suggested, but there was something else Root needed to do first.</p><p>"She's going to do what?" Root sighed. "Where is she headed?" Maybe splitting up from Shaw when she had the fae breathing down her neck had been a bad idea, but it wasn't like she could have brought her along. They didn't like outsiders here one bit.</p><p>"I guess I'd better hurry then."</p>
<hr/><p>"Don't worry, Mr. Clay, you shouldn't have any more trouble," Reese assured the anxious-looking man. "And if you do, just sprinkle some of this around the area." Reese handed over a small plastic bag that Shaw knew for a fact had table salt and a few common spices in it.</p><p>She waited impatiently as Reese collected their payment. They needed the money badly, but this still felt like a waste of time. She'd felt restless ever since they got back to the city. They'd been involved in something so big out there in the middle of nowhere and now they were back to helping wealthy upper east-siders get rid of the evil 'spirits' in their walls. Neither of them was a plumber, so she figured there was only a fifty percent chance they'd dealt with the clanking noises in the pipes.</p><p>At least it hadn't been raccoons this time. Or pigeons.</p><p>"Any word from Root?" Reese asked as they rode the elevator down.</p><p>Shaw checked her phone. "Not yet."</p><p>"What lead was she following up this time?"</p><p>"She didn't say." If Shaw hadn't had this job she might have tailed her. "Knowing her, probably something unnecessarily dangerous."</p><p>"Are you worried about her?" Reese teased.</p><p>Shaw scoffed and then frowned. "Did you get a new phone with a strobe light in it?" She motioned at his coat pocket which was glowing blue.</p><p>"It's the fae stone." Reese pulled the small blue-green marble out of his pocket. "I think this means they want a word, but it's never done this before."</p><p>"Can you hang up on them?"</p><p>The elevator dinged for the lobby and Reese closed his hand around the marble as they passed an elderly couple on the way out.</p><p>"We probably shouldn't put this off," he said. "It'll only make things worse."</p><p>"Fine. We're right here anyway." Central Park was directly across the street from the fancy apartment building.</p><p>The park was full of people despite the cold and overcast weather. Their destination wasn't too far away, but far enough to let the wind cut through Shaw's clothes and leave her frozen to the bone. New York winters could be painfully cold. As they walked the park got progressively darker, rapidly enough that they both noticed almost immediately.</p><p>"Where'd everyone go?" Shaw asked. The crowds had vanished, leaving the paths empty and swallowed by shadows. "Is this more fae bullshit?" It didn't feel like the fae though--they were more into weird colors and strange nature shit and occasionally bloody dismemberment. This was something else.</p><p>"Nothing good." Reese had one hand in his pocket, no doubt reaching for one of his infused artifacts. "Maybe we should come back later."</p><p>Shaw turned around. "Not sure that's an option." The path behind them looked exactly like the path in front of them.</p><p>"Think it could be that shadow demon again?" Reese asked as they continued forwards into the wooded area of the park that was known as the ramble which was where the only fae circle in the city was.</p><p>"It's always possible, though without another warlock it wouldn't be as powerful."</p><p>"It could have made another pact."</p><p>"Let's hope not." She took her phone out of her pocket, figuring that having their own warlock on call should be useful for something, but there was no signal. She probably should have seen that coming. She put it away again and put on her shock wave glove instead.</p><p>The woods were in twilight now, just dark enough to make the path treacherous. Nothing attacked them though, in fact nothing stirred in the trees at all.</p><p>"It should be right over here." Reese left the path and headed through the overgrowth. He stopped so suddenly that Shaw almost ran into him. "This is wrong."</p><p>Shaw peered around him. Despite walking in a straight line they were back at the path they'd just left.</p><p>"Maybe it <em>is</em> the fae and this is some kind of punishment for not finding their artifact yet," Shaw said as they stood in the middle of the path. In every direction, darkness hid the world from them. She was willing to bet they'd end up right back here no matter which direction they chose. "End of the line, I guess."</p><p>Reese didn't answer and when she turned back to find him, he was gone.</p><p>"Of course," Shaw grumbled. "Might as well keep the bad horror movie theme going. What's next? Ominous rustling in the trees?"</p><p>Nothing moved or rustled.</p><p>"Okay, you have my attention," Shaw said. "Now what do you want?" A thought occurred to her. "You're not a giant fire bear by any chance are you?" The current situation didn't match her dream but it was a hell of a coincidence that she had a creepy dream and then a creepy thing stalking her in the woods the same day.</p><p>A snapping branch behind her made her spin around and raise her gloved hand.</p><p>"As much as I like it when you get forceful, this isn't exactly the time or place," a voice said from the woods.</p><p>Shaw lowered her hand and rolled her eyes. "Where'd you come from?" she asked as Root stepped out of the woods. There was a faint iridescent shimmer around her that Shaw had come to associate with her god's powers.</p><p>"She told me you were on your way to see the fae and I decided to drop by to make sure they behaved." She looked around the dark woods. "This wasn't quite what I'd expected though."</p><p>"Do you know how to get out of here?"</p><p>"I think so. Come over here."</p><p>Shaw crossed to the edge of the treeline where Root was waiting and found herself spun around roughly, her back hitting a tree trunk. She only had half a second to wonder if it hadn't been Root at all and instead some unnatural doppelganger before Root leaned down and pressed their lips together. Shaw shoved at her indignantly.</p><p>Root pulled back a tiny bit. "Trust me," she breathed onto Shaw's lips before leaning in again.</p><p>Shaw let her this time and her doubts that this was really Root vanished. She knew what Root felt like, the little ways she reacted and teased. For a moment she let herself forget about the situation they were in and instead concentrated on the way Root moaned into her mouth when she let her hands wander down to squeeze her butt. Root's fingers splayed over her hip and Shaw decided that whatever was out in the woods could wait its turn.</p><p>She was startled when Root pulled back suddenly and started to reach for her when she realized there was sunlight streaming through the trees again. A group of children with ice cream cones were watching them from the path.</p><p>"See? Safe and sound," Root said, tugging her back to the path by one arm.</p><p>"We'd better not have to bring Reese back that way."</p><p>"Hmmm? Oh, the kissing wasn't part of that."</p><p>Shaw's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What was it for then?"</p><p>"Just for fun." Root smirked at her, eyes dancing and mischievous. "I'll go get John and then we can go see what the fae want from you. Wait here a moment " She turned away before Shaw could object.</p><p>Shaw became aware that the kids were still gawking at her. "Scram," she ordered, and they hurried off in the opposite direction from where Root had gone.</p><p>She leaned against a tree to wait since there was nothing better to do and tried to understand what had just happened. If that hadn't been the fae and hadn't been whatever the bear thing was, then what else could it have been?</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Bargains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was supposed to be up earlier but my cat was sitting on me which made it illegal to get up.</p><p>Short sex scene near the end marked off as per usual.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"This way, Lurch." Root didn't pause to look back. If John didn't follow her then that was his fault.</p><p>"Want to tell me exactly what that was?"</p><p>"Not particularly." John hadn't been trapped the same way Shaw had much to her annoyance. He'd been standing in a clearing fiddling with his little infused artifact compass when she'd found him, no doubt trying to locate Shaw. She'd had plans to mess with him a bit before she'd rescued him and hold the whole thing over him for at least a month, but somehow he'd managed to ruin all her fun. Why did Shaw insist on keeping him around? "Hurry up."</p><p>"Were you following us?" John asked as he caught up to her. "I thought you were off tracking down a lead today?"</p><p>"You should try not to think, John. It doesn't suit you." Up ahead she could see Shaw near where she'd left her, detector in hand. Mercifully, John didn't ask any more questions as they made their way over to Shaw.</p><p>"That's not going to tell you much," Root said when Shaw looked up. Root could see the needle on the detector wasn't moving at all. "An unnatural didn't cause any of that so there won't be any energy readings."</p><p>"So what did cause it?" Shaw asked, sticking the detector back in her pocket. She and John exchanged one of those head nod things they did that seemed like a form of silent communication that Root didn't quite understand.</p><p>"I...don't know exactly. Maybe we should talk to the fae first," Root suggested. "One thing at a time." She didn't like lying to Shaw. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell Shaw, it was just that she didn't want to discuss it in front of John. Telling him or not should be Shaw's decision.</p><p>Shaw looked suspicious, but she didn't press the issue. "What happened to you?" she asked John.</p><p>"Whatever that thing was didn't seem interested in me. I got kicked back out into the park."</p><p>"Maybe it really <em>was</em> the fae," Shaw said doubtfully. "I'm the one they have a bargain with."</p><p>"Now's your chance to ask them," Root pointed out. She doubted the fae would tell them anything about what had just happened and, for once, she was grateful for their evasiveness.</p><p>The faerie circle in the park wasn't that far from where they'd ended up. It was off the main path, in the undergrowth, but not far enough to ensure it was never stumbled upon. Root wondered how many people had walked right through the circle of stones without realizing what they were and how many of them had ended up somewhere else.</p><p>While Root had known about the faerie circle here for a long time, she was still getting used to being able to sense it from a distance. It was another one of those new senses that she didn't fully understand or have words to describe--like a beacon of energy she could feel burning through in the darkness. It grew brighter as they approached and she fought the urge to raise her hand and shield her eyes.</p><p>It wasn't actually visible to her, She suggested to Root. Not to her eyes. In time she could learn to control what she saw in her mind and block out the things she didn't want to see. Her presence surged within Root and the brightness dimmed even as they stepped up right next to the circle. It was a relief--both the faded light and the feeling of Her inside of Root. While She was never fully gone, Root missed Her when Her attention was elsewhere.</p><p>"Is there any way to request a specific fae?" Shaw asked when John went to throw his faestone into the circle.</p><p>"Not that I'm aware of. Why, was there one you wanted to talk to?" Root asked curiously.</p><p>"Sneezy. You know, the one I originally made the bargain with."</p><p>Root held back a smile. It was adorable that Shaw had made up names for the fae.</p><p>"I don't think we get a choice in the matter," Reese said. He tossed the stone into the ring and stepped back. "Maybe we'll get lucky though."</p><p>They all watched the circle in silence, shivering in the frigid air. Root edged closer to Shaw both in the hopes of sneakily sharing warmth and because she was worried about what the fae might want. If they thought they were going to carry Shaw off to faerie or something silly, they were going to have to deal with a warlock first.</p><p>Root could feel when the fae drew near--another new thing she hadn't gotten used to yet. "Be ready."</p><p>Shaw glanced sideways at her. "You can sense them or something?"</p><p>"Or something," Root agreed.</p><p>The fae that shimmered into view inside the circle looked different from the ones they'd seen back in that town--for one thing, they'd made less of an effort to look humanoid. One vaguely resembled a goat whose knees bent the wrong way and was folded up on itself in a contorted way that was uncomfortable to look at, and the other was a dim, amorphous form that kept changing, outlined by a green light.</p><p>The goat turned to look at Root with solid black eyes. "Why are you here again, warlock? We told you your offer was not acceptable."</p><p>Root had very much been hoping no one would bring that up. These weren't the same fae she'd met on her secret side trip to the faerie ring earlier in the week, but the fae did seem to all share knowledge somehow.</p><p>"What offer?" Shaw asked, turning to look at her.</p><p>"It's not important." Root met the black eyes of the goat-like fae. "I'm here with Shaw right now, to make sure nothing...unpleasant happens. That's all."</p><p>That seemed to satisfy the fae because it turned back to the other two. "John Reese, we welcome you here. You should come stay with us sometime. There is much you could learn."</p><p>Root would never stop being astonished at Reese's ability to charm unnaturals. Humans he often was too awkward around, but a goat-shaped creature from another world? Immediately bonded.</p><p>"Not today, I'm afraid, but I'm open to discussing it in that future," John said easily.</p><p>Root wondered if he actually meant that. Visiting faerie wasn't always the best idea for humans--in fact it was often the worst idea--but then John wasn't known for his good decisions and she wasn't going to lose any sleep if he vanished into faerie for a hundred years.</p><p>"Sameen Shaw. You made a bargain with us that you have not filled your side of."</p><p>Shaw had that half-smirk on her face that said she was completely unbothered by the situation. Which made one of them.</p><p>"I don't suppose you have a line to the fae I made the bargain with, do you?" she asked.</p><p>"A bargain with one of us is a bargain with all of us."</p><p>"Yeah, but a favor owed one human isn't a favor owed all humans and your buddy owes me a favor."</p><p>It took Root a second to realize what Shaw meant. She couldn't remember everything about the walk through the in-between woods with the fae, Sneezy, since she'd been fairly out of it at the time, but she thought that maybe Sneezy had told Shaw that they would consider harm done to the other warlock as a personal favor to them. And they had definitely harmed the other warlock. There were few things more valuable than the fae owing you a favor.</p><p>The goat-fae remained silent for a few seconds, either surprised or communicating with other fae. The shifting fae beside it still hadn't moved or spoken and Root wasn't convinced that it could.</p><p>"What favor did you wish?" the goat-fae asked at last.</p><p>"I haven't decided yet."</p><p>"You are not going to ask for more time to fulfill your bargain with us?"</p><p>"Don't think a time limit was mentioned in the original deal." Shaw glanced at John. "You remember a time limit, Reese?"</p><p>"Not at all."</p><p>Root couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. From the dead silence from the fae, Shaw had gotten the best of them. She'd reminded them they owed her one and then called them on their own vague terms and they had to be fuming about being so thoroughly shut down (or whatever the fae equivalent of fuming was). But getting one over on the fae wasn't necessarily good. They could be very vindictive.</p><p>"Listen," Shaw continued, "we've been trying to find your damn artifact since we got back. It's proven trickier to track down than we'd hoped, but we're getting close."</p><p>That part was an outright lie, Root knew.</p><p>"And we know you guys really want it so it's in everyone's best interests for you to let us do our jobs and just chill a bit longer. Got it?"</p><p>The silence this time felt as hostile as Root had ever felt a silence be and went on long enough that she started to get antsy. Maybe she should gather some power into herself as a reminder to the fae of what she was? A small threat never hurt anyone.</p><p><em>Wait. </em>The message from Her was quite clear.</p><p>"We will speak again quite soon," the goat-fae said at last. "Perhaps we should establish a time to--"</p><p>"<em>They know what you have done", </em>a silent voice whispered in Root's ear in a hiss that almost made her jump.</p><p>She shifted her gaze to the one being in the area that hadn't spoken yet: the formless fae. She couldn't say if they were looking at her since they didn't have a face (or head), but something about them told her that they were the one responsible for the whisper. The real mystery here was what they were referring to. She'd done multiple things that had pissed off a wide variety of people and unnaturals, some just in the last week. They were going to have to be more specific.</p><p>
  <em>"They will all want to free the prisoners and soon they will come for her."</em>
</p><p>Oh. She'd wondered about that. Shaw using the infused builder glove to free a god was bound to cause ripples eventually, but she'd hoped they'd had a little more time.</p><p><em>"Why warn me?"</em> she tried to send back, not sure if she could.</p><p>
  <em>"Some will not be as polite as us and we wish for her help as well. She cannot help us if she is damaged by the others. Many would not warn you at all. I am doing so at the request of another."</em>
</p><p>The fae were anything but polite, but Root appreciated their meaning. And who would have requested the warning? It wasn't like she or Shaw had friends among the fae. Well, this was just what they needed: more powerful things taking an interest in Shaw. Good thing Shaw had her for protection.</p><p>
  <em>"Tell anyone who will listen that she is protected. Off limits."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Your existence has kept away many thus far, but you will not deter them forever. You are only one against many."</em>
</p><p><em>"Two. Don't underestimate Shaw." </em>She looked over at where Shaw and John were still in conversation with the other fae. <em>"Three, I suppose," </em>she acknowledged reluctantly. Plus Shaw's guardian spirit dog, but she wanted him to remain a secret. He'd be an unpleasant surprise for anyone seeking to harm Shaw.</p><p>
  <em>"I have passed along my warning. What you choose to do with it is your affair."</em>
</p><p>Both the fae faded from sight then and Root realized that the other conversation must have concluded while she was busy.</p><p>"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss Sneezy," Shaw said. "Little bastard was way less obnoxious than those two, and I think they had a thing for Reese."</p><p>"That's...not how it works," Reese sighed.</p><p>"Oh really? Because--"</p><p>"We should probably get out of here," Root interrupted. "Just in case that thing from before comes back." The fae's warning had put her on edge and she was eager to be back in Shaw's apartment. She'd set up some basic protection wards there, and while they wouldn't hold off a real attack, they might give them time to get away if it came to that.</p><p>"We were going to grab some food first," Shaw said. "Getting rid of fake ghosts means I need a burger."</p><p>"Can we just get something on the way back to your apartment?"</p><p>Shaw must have picked up on the tension in her voice because she paused before speaking, a slight frown on her face.</p><p>"Yeah, okay," she said slowly. "There's that new place down the block that I've been wanting to try."</p><p>Reese looked back and forth between them but wisely didn't comment. "I'll catch up with you tomorrow then, Shaw."</p><p>Root stayed silent for the walk to the subway station at the edge of the park, half-listening to Shaw and John discuss the potential outcome of their meeting. John sounded way more worried about Shaw's little stunt than Shaw did, a rare point in his favor. The rest of her attention was on focusing all her senses to watch for any sign of attack from...well, from anything at this point. Here she was, the only warlock in existence (probably...hopefully) and Shaw was the one everyone was after. She'd have been jealous if she hadn't agreed with them. Shaw was potentially more dangerous than she was in some ways and definitely more valuable.</p><p>She didn't even notice when John split off from them and probably would have remained deep in thought if Shaw hadn't elbowed her when they got down to the subway platform.</p><p>"You have some explaining to do."</p><p>Root blinked. There was no way Shaw could have known about her silent conversation, was there?</p><p>"You definitely know what that thing that trapped me in the woods was," Shaw said, "and also what sort of deal were you trying to make with the fae? We're in deep enough shit with them already."</p><p>"I'll explain when we get back to your place." Hopefully she could get away with not explaining the part about the fae. It wasn't right that Shaw was the one in danger for making a deal to save Root's life, but the fae didn't care about fairness and hadn't been interested in changing the terms. She'd been surprised by that as she'd assumed they'd want to have a warlock under their thumb, but with what the shapeless fae in the park had told her maybe it made more sense. If they really thought that Shaw might be able to free the other fae trapped in the original artifacts then having her in their debt would be wise.</p><p>Of course there was the inconvenient problem that the infused artifact Shaw needed to do that was irrevocably broken and the original artifact it came from was still missing. There were too many uncertainties and loose ends at the moment. They needed to tie up one thing and she'd been hoping the fae artifact would be the easiest one. Apparently not though.</p><p>A train rushed into the station and once again Root felt that something was slightly off. The subway cars looked empty, unusual at this time of day, and the lighting inside them was dim.</p><p>"No one's getting on," Shaw noted with a frown.</p><p>Further down the platform, one lady was looking down the track right through the train as if searching for the next train already.</p><p>"I think maybe we should skip this one," Root said eyeing the empty train cautiously. It had definitely been stopped for far too long already.</p><p>"Yeah," Shaw agreed. "Something's off here. You two have any idea what that might be?"</p><p>Root held back a smile at the rush of satisfaction she got whenever Shaw included Her. "Maybe, but that should also wait until we get back." She saw Shaw roll her eyes and added, "I promise there's a good reason."</p><p>"Fine."</p><p>The train doors shut and the train moved away, except instead of pulling away from the station, it vanished, blowing away like dust.</p><p>"What the fuck was that and why couldn't anyone else see it?" Shaw asked.</p><p>"I think it was a trap meant for us." Or for Shaw, she suspected. "Maybe we should take a cab." But the next train looked normal enough and everyone on the platform could see it this time. Root still hesitated until She assured her that it was safe.</p><p>The ride back was quiet, both of them sitting comfortably next to each other and staring out the windows at the dark tunnels. There were definitely things moving in the shadows out there, even more clearly than there had been earlier.</p><p>Even in the relative safety of the crowded subway car, Root found it hard to relax. Every little jerk of the car made her tense and everyone who got on at the stops she eyed with suspicion. She was fully ready to blast even the most slightly suspicious person right through the side of the train car if they looked sideways at Shaw.</p><p>Her god must have sensed the heightened edge of concern she was trying hard to keep under control, because Root felt the full weight of Her attention turn to her. At first it only felt like a warm, comforting presence flowing through her body, but after a moment it felt like a more...focused warmth. Very specifically focused in a way that made Root twitch in her seat. She interpreted the inquiring feeling from Her as Her asking for permission to continue and she nodded her head almost imperceptibly.</p><p>She pulled Shaw's scarf up a little higher around her face to hide her expression. She was all in favor of this, but what was She up to and why now?</p><p>Root was used to Her touch by now and she could recognize the tactics She used, the way She could make her whole body ache to be touched with only the slightest bit of laser-precise stimulation. It was hard to describe exactly what it felt like--not quite like a caress and not exactly like vibration. The feeling intensified drawing a gasp from her that was mercifully muffled by the scarf. She saw Shaw squint at her suspiciously and tried to sit still despite the increasing level of desperation she felt. Her fingernails dug into her palms and she bit down on the scarf.</p><p>Shaw went back to looking out the window leaving Root to suffer in peace. The whole thing shouldn't have been hot, but something about the fact She could do this to her in the middle of a crowded subway car without anyone knowing but them was deliciously perverse and only amplified the sensations. She could feel Her everywhere, stroking inside her and over her skin all at once. It wouldn't take much more for her to come just from this--</p><p>The sensations stopped all at once and Root inhaled sharply, thrown off by the sudden loss. She'd been so close….</p><p>She'd gotten herself mostly under control by the next station when the feelings started up again without warning. She stared fixedly at the ground and tried to stay as still as possible.</p><p>The pattern of getting her so close to the edge and then backing off repeated until they reached their stop. She got to her feet awkwardly as the subway rolled into the station and ignored the weird look Shaw gave her. The walk to pick up their take out dinner and then back to Shaw's apartment wasn't nearly as intense, but She kept it up just enough that Root was still a completely strung-out mess by the time they made it back.</p><p>Shaw had barely closed the door behind them when Root grabbed her.</p><p>"What is wrong with you?" Shaw asked, trying to pull away and rescue the take out bag that had fallen on the floor.</p><p>"Nothing you can't fix in about ten seconds," Root said as she backed up against the wall, tugging Shaw after her.</p><p>Shaw's eyes narrowed. "I <em>knew</em> it. You two were up to...stuff on the train. You're not nearly as subtle as you think."</p><p>"Scold us later," Root said as she unzipped her pants and tried to shove Shaw's hand down them.</p><p>"My food is going to get cold," Shaw protested weakly even as she slid her hand further in.</p>
<hr/><hr/><p>"It'll be fine for another minute," Root assured her. She pulled her pants down a little to give Shaw more room to work and moaned in relief when Shaw's fingers pressed against her through her underwear.</p><p>"Jesus," Shaw grunted, her fingers already hard at work driving Root closer and closer. Her other hand pinned one of Root's arms to the wall, fingers tight enough to bruise. But in contrast to her tight grip, her thumb stroked back and forth over Root's wrist in a way that felt erotic and strangely gentle at the same time. "How long were you two going at it?"</p><p>Root might have answered that if She hadn't chosen that moment to renew Her previous activities and make Root's whole body throb almost unbearably. Her head slammed back into the wall behind her when Shaw pressed down just right and finally, finally she came, her whole body shaking so hard from it that she thought she might fall over.</p><p>Shaw disengaged her hand and stepped back as she recovered. Root slid down the wall to the floor and sat there with her eyes shut, catching her breath. She felt Her inquire as to if it had been worth it and silently acknowledged that yes, it really had. She didn't think she'd come that hard in ages, which was impressive considering what they'd all gotten up to lately. Her god was uniquely gifted at finding new ways to entertain her, and Root had learned to trust Her on things like that.</p><p>In the background she could hear Shaw washing her hands and then the take out bag being ripped open.</p>
<hr/><hr/><p>"Whenever you can stand again, you should get over here. Your food is going to get cold."</p><p>Root gave herself another thirty seconds and then cautiously stood up and rearranged her pants.</p><p>"Was this just a spontaneous subway sex thing or what?" Shaw asked around her burger. She seemed completely unsurprised and unbothered by the whole thing, as if this were a regular occurrence.</p><p>Root came over to join her at the kitchen counter. "I think She decided I was worrying too much."</p><p>"Were you?"</p><p>"I hope so." She watched in fascination as half a burger stuffed with various filings disappeared into Shaw's mouth. "Can we eat at the table?" Her legs still felt shaky.</p><p>"Suit yourself."</p><p>Shaw joined her at the table after a few minutes of pointed defiance and started in on a second burger that Root had been too distracted to notice she'd gotten. The minute she was done, she looked over at Root.</p><p>"We're back at my apartment now, so talk. Start with what happened in the park."</p><p>Root took a bite of her own burger to give herself a moment to think. She had a feeling Shaw wasn't going to be pleased with what she had to say.</p><p>"The...thing that stranded you in the woods was, well, it wasn't an unnatural exactly."</p><p>"A warlock then?"</p><p>"No, definitely not. It was…" Root tried to think of a way to explain that wouldn't sound insane. "Some cities are more...aware than others. Almost like they're awake."</p><p>"You're telling me New York City is <em>alive</em>?"</p><p>"Sort of, yes. It's more like a build-up of the energy here over the years has turned into an entity of a sort. It's not like a human or other sentient being that we're familiar with. It reacts instinctively to external stimulus in a way. It acts to protect itself, but it's not self-aware the ways animals or people would be."</p><p>Shaw stared blankly at her. "So like a plant. You're telling me the city is like a giant fucking magic plant that tried to hold me hostage."</p><p>"I never thought of it that way, but I suppose it's not the worst way to describe it." Shaw had a way of taking the magic out of the fantastical elements in the world and making them depressingly logical. It was endearing. "It's not only New York. A few cities around the world are slightly unanchored from reality. Portland, of course, and New Orleans just in this country."</p><p>She stole a fry from Shaw and ignored her outraged look. "We don't think the city took you hostage exactly. She thinks it saw you as a threat and tried to isolate you to protect itself. I suspect the fake subway train may have been a similar attempt. It can't actually do much to harm you."</p><p>Shaw's eyebrows shot up. "Me? Why would I be a threat? I'm not the warlock with the all-powerful sex god buddy."</p><p>"We're not completely sure, but the fae today gave me a warning that might be part of the explanation."</p><p>"A warning? When was that?"</p><p>"It wasn't out loud."</p><p>"So our silent fae friend wasn't so silent after all. What was the warning?"</p><p>Root balled up the wrapping the burger had come in. Enormous death burgers weren't usually her thing but Shaw got to choose the food most nights and she kept choosing places with feast-sized portions. After living on canned food for months she couldn't say she minded the change at all, especially since she thought Shaw might be doing it on purpose. She'd taken the canned food thing very personally. "The fact you're now the only person to ever release a being from an artifact hasn't stayed a secret. There's been a lot of interest in that apparently."</p><p>Shaw frowned. "My glove got busted though."</p><p>"But there's still an original artifact out there and so far you're the only person who's shown any ability to use it."</p><p>"How many people have tried?"</p><p>"I had about eight people test it before you."</p><p>Most infused artifacts couldn't be used by everyone, but she'd never had one that didn't work for at least fourty percent of fusers at a bare minimum. Exactly what let some people use certain ones remained unclear, though after Shaw's breakthrough with summoning Grim she wondered if it was the way people approached thinking about them. If intent drove artifacts and the intent didn't align correctly with the purpose, the artifact wouldn't work. Maybe something about how Shaw approached the usage of her transform glove, as she'd called it, had been different.</p><p>"I've got the fae, the bureau, the actual city of New York, and probably still Decima and a demon after me." Shaw shook her head. "Before you got me mixed up in this I was scaring squirrels out of people's walls and calling it exorcism."</p><p>"Sorry about that." She mostly was.</p><p>Shaw shrugged. "At least I'm not bored anymore." She gathered up the remains of the trash from their food and got up to throw it out. "What does New York City have to do with the builders though?" she asked over her shoulder. "Did someone put the, uh, spirit of a city in an artifact? Is that even a thing?"</p><p>"Not to the best of my knowledge, or Hers. She thinks that the city sees builders' magic as a threat. There isn't much known about them, but the little I've found suggests they could reshape whole cities in seconds. Before, you barely used it and didn't understand its potential, but now? It might be worried about what you could do with that power."</p><p>Shaw looked disgusted as she came back to the table. "Can your god tell the city to calm the fuck down?"</p><p>"It doesn't work that way."</p><p>"Of course it doesn't. That would be too easy." She glared at Root as if this was all her fault, though there was no real hostility in her gaze. "Probably too much to hope that your thing this morning paid off, huh?"</p><p>In the excitement of everything else Root had forgotten all about that. "It did and it didn't. I still don't know where the artifact is, but I know who has it. Or what, rather."</p><p>"More unnaturals. Great. So what is it this time?"</p><p>"A fire elemental."</p><p>"Oh." A look of understanding crossed Shaw's face. Definitely not the response Root had been expecting.</p><p>"Is there a fire elemental you've crossed paths with before that I don't know about?" she asked.</p><p>"Maybe. I'm not sure." Shaw stared out the window, a slight frown wrinkling her forehead. "I think I'm done with all this crap for the night though. Tomorrow we can talk about how to keep the city from attacking me and where we're going to find this elemental."</p><p>Root was itching with curiosity, but she reluctantly refrained from asking more. "In the morning then."</p><p>Shaw nodded in a distracted way and wandered off to the bathroom. Root heard the shower switch on a minute later and sighed in disappointment. That probably meant Shaw was planning to actually sleep and not continue the very brief sex break they'd had earlier. Oh well.</p><p>She contented herself with watching Shaw walk around in her boy shorts and a tank top with her long hair down and wet from her shower before taking her own shower and dealing with some of the lingering effects of Her touch from earlier on her own. Between her god and Shaw she felt like she spent the majority of her time being extremely turned on these days which was a mixed blessing. At least they both were usually happy to lend a hand.</p><p>Shaw was still awake when she came out of the bathroom, sitting on her bed and turning her broken transform glove over and over in her hands. Root had seen her do that more than a few times since they'd gotten back and she wasn't sure what to think.</p><p>"Do you think this fire elemental might have the builders' artifact as well?" Shaw asked.</p><p>"I have no idea. I can't imagine why an elemental would want a fae artifact to begin with unless it wanted to use it to bargain with the fae. It's not like anyone other than humans can use the artifacts."</p><p>"Could the builders use them?"</p><p>"I'm...not sure." It was a good question even if the answer wasn't necessarily helpful. "We know almost nothing about them. Even She only knows a little."</p><p>Shaw put the glove in the drawer of the rickety nightstand next to her bed. "I keep thinking that…" She shook her head. "It's dumb, but I keep thinking the builders are somehow involved in all of--" She waved her hand in a circle. "--this."</p><p>"No one has seen them in ages."</p><p>"Yeah, I said it was dumb."</p><p>Root sat on the edge of her mattress and toweled her hair. "I didn't say you were wrong. We just don't know enough about them to be able to tell."</p><p>Shaw turned away and flopped down across her bed. "Forget it. It's probably nothing."</p><p>Root found herself wanting to apologize, even with nothing to apologize for. She could sense the frustration coming off of Shaw in waves. Shaw didn't like being the target of weird things going on, not unless there was something she could fight. She really wasn't going to enjoy having to be careful and on guard in the coming days, not on her own account.</p><p>"She has a lead we can follow up on tomorrow," Root offered.</p><p>"Good." Shaw sounded like she meant it. "It'd be nice to solve at least one problem."</p><p>She waited until Root had gotten herself tucked in on her air mattress before she switched off the light next to her bed. Root tried to relax in the darkness and not worry about all the things that might attack them in the night or carry off Shaw. The passage of time was one more thing she had a better sense of now, so she knew it was almost two am when a loud thudding noise made both of them sit up and reach for a gun. (Later, Root would reflect on how ludicrous that reaction was on her part. She could flatten a city block with her powers and she'd still reached for a gun).</p><p>"The fucking heater is out again," Shaw said in disgust. In the dim light coming through the windows, Root could see she was pointing her gun at the cantankerous old radiator in the corner. "It's going to be freezing in here in an hour. Figures it'd happen in the middle of the night when the landlord is asleep." She sighed. "And you have all my spare blankets, don't you? Did you do this?"</p><p>"I had absolutely nothing to do with this," Root said truthfully. She had her suspicions about who might have though.</p><p>"Ugh. Bring the blankets with you at least."</p><p>Root wasted no time gathering up the blankets and crossing the floor to the bed though she hesitated when she got there. Shaw got up, took the blankets, and spread them over the ones already on the bed. She got back in and scooted to the far side.</p><p>"You gonna stand there all night or what?"</p><p>Root gratefully crawled under the covers but was careful to stay on her side. She didn't want to mess this up.</p><p>Shaw fell back asleep almost instantly, and Root finally drifted off a few minutes later, comforted by Her faint presence and the sound of Shaw's breathing close by.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Above the City; Below the City</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Huge thank you to everyone who's left comments and kudos.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shaw was already out of bed when Root woke up the next morning and was doing pushups on the far side of the loft. Root stayed absolutely dead still when she spotted Shaw, afraid that if she moved Shaw might notice and stop and deprive her of the extremely inspiring view of her arms and back muscles shifting and flexing wonderfully. Her god had to try twice before she realized that she was being asked about when she wanted to pursue the lead they had today, and she did her best to silently shush Her and wave off the question until later. This was personal time reserved for important data gathering, she emphasized.</p><p>Her god seemed fine with the idea of personal time but casually reminded her that if her personal time morphed into something that was more...hands on it was likely to run long enough to interfere with the priority of trying to make things safer for Shaw.</p><p>Root sulked but she couldn't argue with that. Still, she indulged herself by watching the rest of Shaw's workout while keeping up the pretense that she was asleep. When Shaw finally stood up and stretched, Root sat up in bed rubbing her eyes like she'd just woken up.</p><p>"Can't believe I slept so late," she said with a yawn.</p><p>Shaw snorted inelegantly. "You should work on breathing quieter if you want anyone to believe that."</p><p>So maybe she hadn't been quite as inconspicuous as she'd thought. "What can I say? Some things are meant to be enjoyed."</p><p>"Uh-huh." Shaw came over to stand next to the bed and looked down at her, her skin glistening with sweat from her workout in a way that made it very hard for Root to remember all those things her god had said about priorities. "You want breakfast?"</p><p>She tried and failed not to stare at the single drop of sweat rolling down Shaw's neck as she answered. "Yes, please."</p><p>She definitely couldn't complain about the breakfast situation since she'd started crashing with Shaw. Not counting the mornings where one of them slipped out early, Shaw liked to cook her own breakfast and didn't seem to mind making extra for Root. It was funny, other than for a few favorites, she'd never really cared much about food other than as a thing she needed to eat to survive, but she'd rapidly gotten spoiled by having amazing home-cooked meals made for her most days. Going back to living off the canned food from a few weeks ago, or the take out and microwavable meals from her months spent hiding out had lost even the most dubious shred of appeal.</p><p>"You asked the fae to switch responsibility for the bargain I'd made with them to you," Shaw said halfway through breakfast. It wasn't a question and it didn't sound accusatory.</p><p>"I did," Root agreed cautiously, unsure how else to deal with being called out so directly. She enjoyed Shaw's bluntness but it sometimes threw her off balance. Which was enjoyable in its own way. "You made the deal for my sake, so it felt fair to assume responsibility once I was able."</p><p>"I'm responsible for my own choices." There was still nothing that Root registered as Shaw's brand of anger or even annoyance, but Shaw sounded firm.</p><p>"Of course." She'd expected Shaw to grill her on elementals and the city this morning, not whatever this was. "They weren't even remotely interested though. I think they want to have you under their thumb."</p><p>"I'll deal with that when I have to."</p><p>Root wondered if she should feel guilty for trying to go behind Shaw's back to protect her. She didn't. And she definitely had no intention of promising not to do it again. Shaw had way too many things after her right now and she didn't have a god to protect her. It only made sense for Root to be the target here.</p><p>"She told me where we can find an elemental to talk to," she said, hoping to change the subject. "But first I think we need to discuss how to keep the city from trying to trap you."</p><p>"Can we threaten it?"</p><p>"I'm not sure how we'd threaten a city." Though if it was scared of Shaw then that meant it was possible. "I had something a little different in mind." She got up, walked to the corner where she kept her small bag of possessions, and fished out a little leather pouch. There was a tangle of jewellery inside it and she picked through it until she found a metal ring with clear stones set all the way around the band. "This will help hide you from it," she said as she handed it over to Shaw. "It won't change your physical appearance, but it will make anything tracking your energy not recognize you."</p><p>Shaw turned the band around in her fingers. "My energy? Is that like what your detector can pick up?"</p><p>"Not exactly. The detector recognizes energy types, like demons or fae. This obscures your personal energy signal. You'll still register as human, but not as Sameen Shaw specifically."</p><p>"Where did you even get this?"</p><p>"I made it." She rarely used infused artifacts that weren't her own. "I think the artifact I made it from must have housed a doppelganger." She hadn't known what original artifacts were at the time, but she remembered that one had been particularly uncomfortable to work with.</p><p>"Those things creep me out." Shaw slid the ring on her finger. "I don't feel any different. How do I know it's working?"</p><p>"It's working." Root hadn't known she could detect Shaw until she'd had to find her yesterday in the woods, but the sudden change in the way Shaw felt to her new senses was jarring. "Hopefully it will be enough."</p><p>"Yeah, hopefully." Shaw eyed the ring with suspicion. "Now tell me more about this elemental."</p><hr/><p>Shaw had wanted to take the stairs, but the pained look Root had given her plus the fact they were going all the way to the top of the sixty-something story building had convinced her to take the elevator. She spent most of the ride up fidgeting with her new infused artifact ring, spinning it on her finger and rubbing the stones with her thumb. She didn't like hiding, but it wasn't like she could fight a city.</p><p>"I thought you'd stopped making infused artifacts," she said after the old lady who'd been the only other occupant on the elevator got out on the eighth floor.</p><p>"I have, mostly. That one is from a while back."</p><p>"You had a stash of them somewhere that didn't get burnt up in the fire?"</p><p>"Quite a few, actually. It always pays to have a backup plan."</p><p>Shaw refrained from commenting on what she thought of Root's record on having backup plans. "And your god is okay with you still using them?"</p><p>"Infused artifacts don't house a trapped entity, only a sliver of their powers. It's...upsetting to Her, but not nearly as much as the original artifacts, and She was actually the one who suggested I give you this one."</p><p>"If we bust all the original artifacts, no one can make infused ones anymore. The bureau really won't like that, and neither will your unlicensed fuser buddies." And it left the huge question of how humans were supposed to protect themselves from unnaturals. Before artifacts had shown up, they'd been at a notable disadvantage.</p><p>"I'm aware. And the infused artifacts are--" Root stopped abruptly. "It's a tricky situation.</p><p>The elevator dinged for the top floor before Shaw could try and dig a full explanation out of her. She'd hoped Root would be less mysterious about everything since they got back, but maybe that had been asking too much.</p><p>The elevator doors opened into a carpeted office hallway. Root led the way to a stairwell at the far end which took them up the last story to the roof. There was a locked door at the top and Root stepped aside so Shaw could deal with it. The roof beyond was covered with gravel and the usual assortment of the ventilation units and metal pipes found on most roofs in the city.</p><p>A short, shrill cry echoed across the rooftop three times in rapid succession and Shaw craned her neck to try and see where it had come from. It hadn't sounded quite like a seagull, but definitely a bird of some kind. When they got closer to the edge of the roof she saw the source: a greyish bird with a black head and white chest perched on the concrete ledge that ran around the outside of the rooftop.</p><p>Root came to a halt a respectful distance away and the bird didn't fly away, though it did eye them with suspicion.</p><p>"Is that a mini hawk or something?" Shaw asked quietly. It looked vaguely familiar, but birds weren't her specialty.</p><p>"Peregrine falcon. New York City has quite a large population of them, though it's rare to see them outside of the parks."</p><p>"I never knew that." It was a pretty cool looking bird, especially up close like this.</p><p>"The fastest animal in the world," Root said with something approaching respect in her voice.</p><p>As they watched, the fastest animal in the world pooped on the roof.</p><p>"That's not an elemental," Shaw said. "Right?"</p><p>"No, but there's a reason they like this roof in particular. She's negotiating so it might take another minute."</p><p>Shaw wouldn't have minded hanging out and watching the small falcon preen its feathers for a bit, but it was really fucking cold due to the wind and her teeth started chattering after a few minutes of standing still.</p><p>"Here." Root made a show out of wrapping her scarf around Shaw's neck right up over her nose.</p><p>"Isn't this my scarf?" Shaw asked. "Did you steal my scarf?" How had she not noticed that?</p><p>"If I hadn't then you wouldn't have anything to keep your neck warm now would you?" Root's neck was bare (though Shaw spotted a small reddish mark on the side of it that she remembered leaving there the other night), but it didn't seem to bother her. Maybe she got some type of temperature protection with her warlock deal.</p><p>Shaw grumpily adjusted her scarf and tried not to inhale the smell of Root's hideous floral shampoo on it.</p><p>"It's coming," Root warned and pulled her back a step. The falcon on the ledge took off and glided away over the city.</p><p>The wind picked up--cutting right through Shaw's clothes to leave her frozen to the bone--and a gust of it swirled through the air in front of them, so powerful they had to shield their eyes with their hands. When it settled down at last, there was something new perched on the ledge at the end of the roof.</p><p>It was...ostensibly a bird, but with a few notable differences from the average bird. For starters it was almost transparent, seeming to fade from view except when it moved and the shimmer of its form betrayed its shape. From what little Shaw could make out, it looked quite similar in features to the falcon that had been there a few minutes ago, but was massively larger--probably larger than an eagle.</p><p>After it took a few minutes to settle, the bird's shape became clearer. The outline of its body and wings and claws and face stopped vanishing and gave it a more solid form. It regarded them silently, head tilting back and forth in a way that definitely mimicked the movement of a real bird, but with a hint of something more intelligent in its eyes.</p><p>Root stepped forwards. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. She appreciates your help in this matter."</p><p>The giant bird continued to watch them without making a sound. Shaw wondered if they should have brought Reese along. He did have a way of making friends with unnaturals and he'd gotten an ice elemental to help them once.</p><p>"We're looking for an artifact," Root continued. "It was made from the essence of one of the fae and it was taken from some humans recently by one of your kind. A fire elemental. We were hoping you might have some information to help us find it."</p><p>Elementals, Shaw knew, were loners. They didn't have a sense of community or relation to each other, and there was no reason to assume any one elemental knew anything about any other one. And yet Root and her god had agreed that this trip to talk to Manhattan's one and only wind elemental was worth their time.</p><p>The elemental didn't respond to Root in any way Shaw could see.</p><p>"You know what I am," Root continued (and Shaw could hear the slightest hint of irritation in her voice), "and you know we would make powerful allies. Surely there must be some type of agreement we can come to."</p><p>None of this seemed to be getting them anywhere and Shaw couldn't feel her ears anymore and was rapidly getting cranky. She stepped up next to Root, pitching her voice just loud enough to carry down the roof. "I dunno, Root, maybe it's been in bird form too long and now has the brains of one as well."</p><p>She'd expected a reaction, but not one quite as violent as the almost-solid gust of wind that knocked her backwards. She ended up on her ass, back bruised against a metal pipe a few feet back from where she'd started.</p><p>"Maybe leave the talking to me," Root suggested as she offered Shaw a hand up. She looked completely unruffled by the attack and Shaw suspected that she'd blocked it somehow.</p><p>"At least we know it's actually paying attention," Shaw said as she got up, ignoring Root's hand. Her back was going to have a nasty pipe-shaped bruise tomorrow.</p><p>Root turned back towards where the giant bird still sat on the ledge. "If you're not interested, then perhaps we'll go find someone who is."</p><p>
  <em>"You have nothing I want."</em>
</p><p>Shaw couldn't have said if the voice had spoken out loud or in her mind, but either way it was unpleasant, like wind shrieking through a crack in a window.</p><p>"As a warlock, I can--"</p><p>
  <em>"I know what you are, and I want no part of it."</em>
</p><p>Root looked offended and Shaw could almost see the scathing retort forming on her lips. But Root stopped short, shut her mouth, and pouted. Shaw was going to need to find a way to get her god to tell her what the magic words were to make that happen.</p><p>"I can free elementals from artifacts," she said, even if that was pushing the limits of the truth. "Maybe one of your buddies is stuck and we could release them." She was fairly sure that the shock wave glove she had was made from a wind elemental artifact. The fae had been very interested in getting back not only the original artifacts made from their kind, but that infused artifacts linked to them.</p><p>
  <em>"Why would this interest me?"</em>
</p><p>Apparently they really didn't care about the others of their kind.</p><p>"Okay, fine," Shaw said. "Forget the fae artifact. Have you ever seen a giant fire bear? Skull head and flaming eye sockets? Ring a bell?" She could tell Root was looking at her curiously but she stayed focused on the bird.</p><p>
  <em>"You were given an invitation which you did not accept. That is none of my concern."</em>
</p><p>"An invitation? To do what? Am I supposed to go somewhere?" She thought back to the dream, but there hadn't been anything but the field and the fire and the bear.</p><p>
  <em>"I do not know why they would waste their time on you, but the next invitation you will not be allowed to refuse, human."</em>
</p><p>Shaw narrowly resisted the urge to flip it off. Unnaturals were extremely varied, but they all seemed to get off on using the word human like an insult.</p><p>"Could you tell us how to accept the invitation?" Root asked.</p><p>
  <em>"No."</em>
</p><p>Shaw sighed in disgust. "Let's just go. This wind bag isn't going to tell us anything. It probably doesn't even know what I'm talking about."</p><p>This time the angry gust of wind broke around an invisible barrier in front of Shaw. Root must have been expecting it and included Shaw inside her defenses this time. Even as the wind swept past them harmlessly, some instinct Shaw had never felt before demanded that she touch her left palm to the ground and--</p><p>And what? Look like a total fucking idiot probably. She ignored the stray urge and kept her attention focused on the elemental.</p><p>"We should have brought Reese," she said. "If anyone could make friends with a giant pigeon, it'd be him." She turned to leave, but Root stayed put.</p><p>"You haven't left yet," Root said, addressing the bird. "If you really had nothing to say to us then why bother showing up and why not leave already?"</p><p>
  <em>"I wanted to see for myself what the others were afraid of."</em>
</p><p>There was no change in inflection from the detached voice, but something still made Shaw take half a step forwards and maybe slightly to the right just a centimeter. It was an empty gesture in many ways--Root was the one keeping them safe from the elemental and had no need for Shaw to protect her--but she wasn't able to stop herself from trying to anyway.</p><p>"Really think we should go now," Shaw suggested again.</p><p>Root ignored her. "You've seen now," she said to the elemental. "Have you satisfied your curiosity?" Her words dripped with contempt.</p><p><em>"Two abominations: one leashed and one unarmed. The others are foolish." </em>The elemental ruffled its feathers and turned to face out over the city. <em>"I do not expect either of you will live long enough to trouble me further."</em> It launched itself off the roof, dropping from sight before rising up again and gliding away over the buildings.</p><p>"Well that was a waste of time," Shaw said. "Don't suppose your god knows any other elementals?"</p><p>Root shook her head, preoccupied and gazing out at the vanishing elemental. "A fire bear?" she asked without looking at Shaw.</p><p>"It was this weird dream I had. Probably nothing important." An invitation, the elemental had said. An invitation to where?</p><p>"Perhaps." Root finally looked at her. "I need to run an errand. Alone. Unrelated warlock business."</p><p>Shaw rolled her eyes. More of Root's mysteries. "Have fun."</p><hr/><p>"She still doesn't trust me," Root complained mournfully to the side of the green metal pillar in the subway station. "I suppose I can't blame her for that, but I thought maybe after everything that's happened in the last few months…."</p><p>Root interpreted the response from her god as if She'd made a broad sweeping gesture at Root's current location and errand.</p><p>"This is different. Shaw is in a lot of danger right now. Taking her somewhere she'd be at risk would be unnecessarily reckless."</p><p>A group of people swarmed down the stairs to the platform and passed by her without a glance. The platform shimmered under their feet ever so slightly, though Root knew that only she could see it. If Manhattan was a living thing, then the subways were its veins with humans travelling through them like blood cells. Public areas like the subway were where the city seemed most alive, while private apartments felt more removed, as if the life of the city was driven by the larger population rather than the individuals. The safest place for Shaw right now was probably her own apartment.</p><p>"I don't expect her to appreciate it. I just want her safe." Root could tell where She was going to take this train of thought next and beat Her to it. "Maybe she's right not to trust me then, but at least she'll be alive."</p><p>She hadn't gone quite far enough with that line of thought, because her god pointed out that if Shaw didn't trust her then she was just going to run into dangerous situations anyway but without telling Root about them first. Root didn't have a good answer to that and just regarded the column glumly. She was still lost in thought when the next subway train rolled into the station, but brightened as the doors shut behind the majority of the people who'd been on the platform. With only a few people left on the platform and all of them waiting for the train on the other side, she was finally free from any observation. She wandered down to the very end of the platform and hopped off the edge to land on the tracks below.</p><p>It was filthy down there--everything was a rusty dark brown and covered in garbage. There were empty soda bottles and newspapers scattered all over and she thought she saw a rat scurrying away. The shimmering she'd seen back on the platform was more pronounced on the tracks. It wasn't the same as the iridescent shimmer that came with Her power, but was more like pieces of reality flickering on and off in the corner of her eye. She picked her way through the trash--keeping a wary eye on the humming third rail--and into the subway tunnel mouth that the train had recently vanished into. A few feet in she stopped and studied the wall next to her. It was dark, but there was just enough light from the platform stealing down the tunnel that she could make out the symbol of a gear with an eye in the middle. Unlike the one that allowed access to the crafters' workshops though, this one had an addition: a bright thread of green wove through the gear and glowed brightly when she approached it.</p><p>She didn't bother to put on the infused ring she usually used to activate these marks because she knew from experience that it wouldn't have worked. Whoever had added that glowing line to the design had changed how it activated, making the ring a key that no longer fit in its lock. Normally this meant that she'd be stuck, but this time she had an invitation. She placed her bare palm on the symbol and watched in fascination as the green line came to life and crawled up her arm like a vine. It covered her jacket sleeve from wrist to elbow and then sank through the fabric. She felt it hit her skin with a thousand little jabs of pain (that brought back unpleasant memories of Greer's warlock control cuff) and then the entire subway tunnel rippled and changed around her. It didn't look that different at a first glance, but everything was slightly off. The metal pillars looked more like the trunks of enormous trees than architecture and the ground also seemed closer to a natural surface. There was a faint sound in the distance like the echoes of bird calls from deep within the tunnel.</p><p>She took her hand off the wall and rolled up her sleeve enough to see that the glowing green line was still there, settled on her skin like a tattoo. It was a guest pass perhaps, allowing her access to this facet of reality that she otherwise would have been barred from. (Hopefully it wasn't permanent. The one tattoo on her back was all she wanted). She pushed her sleeve back into place and set off further into the tunnel.</p><p>"Do you know how far in this mystery person is?" She had known that her god would be able to talk to her here, but it was still a relief when She responded. Five minutes wasn't too bad, but she wished she'd worn different shoes since the ground had turned into soft dirt beneath her.</p><p>A distant rumbling from behind her made her look back over her shoulder. This place was a place in-between worlds and while not everything from both sides appeared here, there were often echoes and imitations of each. The neat dirt path she followed that had a rock wall on one side and evenly spaced tree trunks stretching up into the darkness on the other could be recognized as the subway track if you knew what you were looking at. Which meant the rumbling might be….</p><p>Root darted off the path and up between two of the tree trunks. The bark felt cold under her fingers, like rough metal rather than wood. She didn't have time to investigate that further though because the rumbling had turned into a roar and a formless dark shape that took up the entire path and stretched all the way up into the darkened ceiling swept through the tunnel in front of her. While she couldn't make out any details of it, there was a long glowing yellow stripe running down its side that it took her a second to recognize. Those would be the windows on the subway car being blurred together by the speed it was travelling at. She wondered if the otherworldly train stopped if she'd be able to see inside the windows and if so what the passengers would look like here.</p><p>The train passed quickly and she climbed back down from the space between the trees to the path. It wasn't much further now, according to Her.</p><p>There was a vibrant green light ahead, just off to the side of the path in a small thicket of dark trees. The light danced strangely through the branches, almost as if she was viewing it from underwater. As she approached, it grew brighter, almost painfully so and she shielded her eyes before a silent nudge from Her made her realize that the light wasn't actually visible to her eyes. It was much easier to dim the light inside her mind's eye now than it had been back in the park and she walked forward the last few feet into the copse and through the first row of trees. In the center was a clearing, and in the clearing sat a single creature, one that looked almost the same as the last time she'd seen them.</p><p>"You didn't bring the others?" they asked her.</p><p>"Afraid not," she said. "Just think of this as an opportunity for the two of us to get to know each other better." The trip through the other subway world had left her feeling a little off balance, and she relished the extreme discomfort she could feel from the fae. The fact she could pick up any sort of emotion from them now was also quite satisfying. She grinned, teeth bared in what she hoped was a terrifying smile.</p><p>Across from her, the fae that Shaw called Sneezy blinked their huge saucer-like eyes with horizontal pupils twice. "I suppose you had better sit down then. This might take some time."</p><hr/><p>Some people might have had an ethical debate with themselves over tailing someone they were...roommates with, but Shaw congratulated herself on definitely not being one of those poor bastards as she followed Root into the subway station. She was fairly certain Root hadn't spotted her, but after ten boring minutes of crouching on the stairs while watching Root have what appeared to be a one-sided conversation with a column, she started wondering if maybe Root was fucking with her. After all, Root's god could probably have spotted her with no problem, though Shaw wasn't sure if she'd snitch on her.</p><p>A subway train sped into the station and Shaw tensed--ready to quickly board the train if Root decided to get on--but the train left without Root moving from her spot next to the column. Shaw's leg was getting a cramp.</p><p>When Root finally did move, she didn't head back to the stairs like Shaw had thought she might, but instead headed past the stairs and further down the platform out of Shaw's view. Shaw got to the bottom of the stairs and peered around the corner just in time to see Root slide off the edge of the platform and onto the tracks below. What the hell was she playing at now?</p><p>Shaw did her best to watch Root wander down the subway tunnel without sticking her head out too far, but Root never turned around to look back at the platform. Instead, she walked over to the wall of the tunnel, placed her hand on it, and...vanished.</p><p>Shaw cursed and hurried over to drop onto the tracks as well. There wasn't any trace of Root at the place where she'd vanished, but there was some kind of symbol painted on the wall. She took out her phone and snapped a picture to send to Reese...except the damn thing didn't show up in the picture. Shaw flipped off the wall since Root wasn't there to be flipped off herself and then trudged back to the platform and hauled herself back up.</p><p>A single man was nearby on the platform, frozen halfway through putting his headphones on by the sight of her emerging from the tracks. She ignored him and grabbed a handful of crumpled newspaper from near one of the trash cans. A hasty search of her coat pockets failed to turn up a pen and she finally turned to acknowledge the man. He hadn't put his headphones on and was trying very hard to not look like he was watching her.</p><p>"You got a pen?"</p><p>She could tell he did and watched him consider lying. In the end his curiosity won out and he handed over a cheap pen he'd had in his pocket.</p><p>"Thanks, I'll be back in a second." She figured she had a few more minutes before the next train.</p><p>Her new friend didn't try to stop her from dropping back onto the tracks, but she knew he was peering down the tracks after her. She ignored him and returned to the mark on the wall. It took a little juggling and she had to take her gloves off, but she managed to awkwardly point her phone light at the wall and scribble down a rough drawing of the symbol onto the newspaper. It wasn't great, but it was better than nothing.</p><p>The man had returned to where he'd originally been when she got back to the platform. She handed the pen back, but he hesitated before taking it.</p><p>"Do you, uh, work for the MTA?"</p><p>"Uh, yeah. I'm an...engineer." That sounded like a thing subways needed. "Had to go fix a valve. You know how valves get when you leave them too long."</p><p>The man shook his head and took the pen back. She returned to ignoring him so she could send a picture of her drawing to Reese. The drawing showed up correctly in the photo which was fortunate for everyone involved because she probably would have glued Root's hair to her pillow in annoyance if even a crude drawing of the damned symbol couldn't be photographed.</p><p>If it even was Root's symbol.</p><p>She had to go upstairs to get enough of a signal to send Reese a text and she left the curious man behind her on the platform as she jogged up the stairs.</p><p>"You recognize this symbol?" she asked Reese when he answered his phone. She'd been too impatient to wait for him to answer the text.</p><p>"No, should I?"</p><p>"Root just used it to warp to another dimension or teleport or something. It was painted on a wall in the subway and I couldn't take a photo of the damn thing. Either some unnatural bullshit or some fuser bullshit."</p><p>"You could try asking another crafter. If it was fuser bullshit then the crafters would definitely know."</p><p>"The only other crafter I know besides Root who's still alive is Daniel and he's vanished." Crafters vanished a lot, either because of the bureau or because of accidents with original artifacts. "You still know that one guy?"</p><p>"Leon? Yeah, but he just sells fake infused artifacts. He's not a crafter by a long shot."</p><p>"And he's been passing himself off as a legitimate seller for long enough that maybe he's picked up information on how to blend in with the real deal. Maybe he's at least seen this thing."</p><p>"Can't hurt to ask. I'll call you back."</p><p>Shaw let out a long, frustrated breath and pulled her scarf tighter around her. She started walking downtown towards where the next subway stop would be. She was ready to head home, but she needed to wait for Reese to call her before she got on the train. Also walking was a good way to help her burn off some of the annoyance she felt. It wasn't exactly Root she was annoyed at, or not <em>just</em> Root. She was annoyed that the entire city of Manhattan had it out for her for no reason, and that she hadn't been able to knock the smug out of the wind elemental earlier, and that some obnoxious fire elemental bear had invaded her dreams and failed to properly invite her somewhere. Why did everyone have to be so mysterious? Was it too much to ask for a straight answer for once?</p><p>And, okay, yes, while she was on this train of thought, maybe she <em>was</em> annoyed at Root, too. The secret trip into the subway was likely related to their current situation no matter what Root had said, and that meant that Root was still trying to protect her by cutting her out of things. By making herself a target instead.</p><p>Which was just completely unacceptable.</p><p>Something bumped into her leg and she looked down to see a large, black dog trotting next to her. She stopped to crouch down next to the dog and run her cold fingers through his fur. "Grim? How'd you get here?" She had the disk for summoning him tucked in her pocket so she knew Reese couldn't have summoned him. Had he shown up on his own? She hadn't been aware he could do that.</p><p>Grim whined anxiously and she looked up. Around her, the busy afternoon city street had gone dark and empty. There were no pedestrians, no bikers, no cars. There weren't even pigeons. Shaw stood up and reached for her gun.</p><p>"You know what's going on, boy?"</p><p>Grim whined again and tugged on her pants leg with his mouth. She looked the empty street over carefully before she turned to follow her very anxious magic dog down an alley. "Is this like in the park yesterday?" she asked him as they squeezed past a dumpster. "Did the city spot me somehow?" That shouldn't have been possible because Root had given her--</p><p>Shaw looked down at her bare fingers with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She dug in her pockets and pulled out her gloves and sure enough there was a hard object in one of the fingers of one. She fished the ring out, but, before she could put it back on, Grim barked at her, once, quietly.</p><p>"Not yet, huh? Okay." She closed her hand over the ring and followed Grim further into the alley. "Figures that you're probably the only one who might actually give me a real answer and all you can say is woof."</p><p>Grim woofed at her and she patted him on the head and followed him further into the ever-darkening alley. As she walked, a strange sensation started on the back of her left hand. She pulled up her coat sleeve a little to get a look and found a tiny discolored spot on the back of her hand, about an inch under her pinky knuckle. It had the faintest blue sheen to it and it burned like an icy brand.</p><p>She had a bad feeling she knew what it was and why the city might have suddenly perceived her as a threat. There was nothing she could do about it now though, so she tucked her hand back into her sleeve and followed after Grim.</p><p>The alley narrowed to a suspicious degree and, when she checked, the building on either side of them were now featureless, dark shapes. This day just kept getting better and better. When they reached the end of the alley, Grim darted ahead, disappearing <em>through</em> the walls in front of them and when Shaw looked closely she could see a narrow opening. Squeezing through it wasn't pleasant, but she managed and burst out of the alley mouth onto...the street she'd started out on. Cars flew by, honking their horns, and pedestrians glared as they walked around her. She looked down at Grim.</p><p>"Good boy. Can you eat steak? Because I'm definitely getting you an entire steak later." The phone in her pocket vibrated. "Right after I talk to Reese."</p><p>"It's a crafter's mark," Reese said when she picked up. "Leon said they mark locations where crafters have hideouts. Fusers use them, too, sometimes, but the crafters are picky about who they let in."</p><p>"They have hideouts on subway tracks?" She slipped the doppelganger ring back onto her finger and started walking again. She was pleased when Grim stayed with her.</p><p>"Not exactly. The marks let them go to some in-between space where the bureau can't track them down. It's how they stay hidden."</p><p>"That explains why Root vanished."</p><p>"Yeah, but Leon also said this mark is wrong. The extra line you drew weaving around the gear shouldn't be there. It means it was compromised somehow."</p><p>"Root would have known that." No way did Leon know more than Root.</p><p>"Probably, but he said crafters shouldn't even be able to activate a mark that looks like this and most of them would know not to try."</p><p>"Root isn't an ordinary crafter though, is she? Did he know what compromised it?"</p><p>"No clue."</p><p>Shaw sighed. "Do you have any books you stole from the bureau that have anything to do with the builders?" she asked, changing the topic abruptly. "Or anything to do with where the artifacts originated? Anything at all?"</p><p>"I don't think so, but I do have a history of the bureau book that's...let's just say I wouldn't want to drop it on my foot. It's written in the driest most boring way possible and I've never gotten very far, but if there was anything at all, it'd be in there."</p><p>"Can't hurt to check." Unless it gave her a headache. "Can I swing by and get it?"</p><p>"I'll be here."</p><p>Shaw hung up and looked down at Grim. "I have to make a detour, but you're going to get an extra steak for it."</p><p>Grim wagged his tail and Shaw patted him on the head again and felt better than she had all day.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Pooling Resources</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You didn't bring the other one?" Sneezy asked again as Root took a seat on the log across from them.</p><p>"John? No, I don't take normal people through crafter seals with me, especially not him."</p><p>"No, Sameen Shaw."</p><p>Maybe at this point she should just assume every unnatural in all the planes was after Shaw. "No, not her either, why? I thought you didn't like her."</p><p>"The fae don't like her."</p><p>Now <em>that</em> was an extremely interesting answer. "But you do."</p><p>On the ground between them, a blue light sprang up, almost like a campfire. The faerie light burned cold and bright and cast Sneezy's shadow onto the stone wall behind them. Their shadow didn't match their current form at all and Root studied it cautiously. Sneezy might look small and fragile (and currently be radiating an emotion that Root read as morose), but that was just a costume they wore. She'd do well to remember that.</p><p>"Why did you want to talk to me? Or to Shaw?" Her god had told her that an unnatural had information for her, but not much beyond that. "Did you find out something about the artifact we're looking for?"</p><p>Sneezy stared at her for a long time before answering. "It is possible, however it is not the artifact you mean."</p><p>Root's breath caught. "The builders' artifact. You have it?"</p><p>"What would you do with it if you found it? What would Sameen Shaw do with it?"</p><p>Root wouldn't have answered that, but She prompted her. She disliked having to share information with beings who, while technically not her enemies, certainly weren't her allies, but She called the shots on these things. "The original artifacts should never have been made. We can unmake them all with the builders' artifact."</p><p>"And what defense would the human race have against the rest of us then?" Sneezy spread their hands wide. "Perhaps you could make enough pacts to have an army of warlocks to defend this world, but that would be chaotic and still leave you at the beck and call of other unnaturals. Your god, as you call them, might be benevolent, but they are unusual in that."</p><p>Root studied the little fae, taking in their shifting bark-like skin and long fingers. The fae often made an effort to appear to humans in a form that didn't seem threatening, not because they desired peace, but because they wanted to lull humans into a false sense of security. Unnaturals were, at best, ambivalent towards humans, and, at worst, considered humans their rightful prey. She'd known that without artifacts humans would be defenseless, but she hadn't put it into the context of why unnaturals would be so eager to have the original artifacts gone. It had been overly generous to think they'd all cared about freeing their own kind.</p><p>"Wouldn't the fae want us defenseless?" she asked. There were a lot of ideas stirring in the back of her mind. Puzzle pieces she'd thought she understood but now thought might be part of something larger.</p><p>"We are not the ones to be most worried about."</p><p>"No, but you did just warn me." She looked around the in-between subway world again. "A single fae, all on their own, nowhere near a faerie circle, squatting in an in-between world in the subway. You must have done something very bad to be hiding here. Did you get banished?" She had never heard of the fae banishing one of their own. A few, like the one fae Doris she'd met back in that town, chose to live in the human world even at the cost of access to their full powers, but Sneezy's situation seemed different.</p><p>"Has your god told you why the builders left?"</p><p>Root thought about pressing her question to keep them from evading it, but the fae politics that had led to Sneezy being here weren't that important to her. Probably. It was still tempting though. The fae were hard to manipulate compared to humans and the fact she seemed to have found something that she could use to needle this one made it hard to pass up on, but there were more important things at stake. "Someone made an artifact using the essence of a builder and then all the builders left. Since only the builders could make original artifacts, I'd assume it was evidence of an internal conflict and they left to settle it."</p><p>Sneezy shut their eyes. "None of us had known about the builders before they appeared on this world. They came from nowhere and gave humans the ability to fight back against the other species by twisting our own powers against us. They remained an unknown no matter how much we tried to learn and they vanished as quickly as they appeared." Sneezy's eyes opened again, two glowing, yellow saucers in the darkness. "The others are eager to return to a world where humans had very limited defense against us, but some of us wonder about the wisdom of attracting the attention of the builders. Using their power to return the world to the state it was in when they originally appeared is an unsettling thought."</p><p>"Did you leave because of that?" Root asked as she turned the rest over in her mind. She needed to think all of that through and discuss it with Her soon. They were flying blind through too many unknowns.</p><p>"I will remain here for a week," Sneezy said. "If you return here with Sameen Shaw before that time is up, there is something I wish to show both of you. If you do not, then at least think about what I have said. Some monsters are best left sleeping."</p><p>It was a dismissal and Root could tell she wasn't going to get any more out of the little fae without the aid of some threats and force, and She had made it clear that Root wasn't going to try that method. She never let Root have any fun.</p><p>Root stood up and brushed herself off. "Well, this was almost informative. We'll think about your offer and maybe we'll see you again soon." She had to decide how much to actually tell Shaw first.</p><p>Sneezy stayed quiet as she left, and when she looked back over her shoulder she saw them huddled by their blue light looking almost like a lost child.</p>
<hr/><p>Shaw didn't look up when Root let herself into the apartment. She didn't have a great place to sit and read in her loft, and after two hours in various positions on her own bed, she'd migrated to Root's air mattress just for variety. She was sitting there cross-legged with an enormous leather-bound tome in her lap and Grim curled up next to her leg when Root walked in. She listened to the sounds of Root taking off her coat and shoes and tried to focus on the mind-numbing paragraph she was in the middle of reading. Who knew that an organization made to combat other-worldly forces could have so many board meetings?</p><p>"Nothing like coming back to find you waiting in my bed," Root said as her footsteps approached. "Though that book looks a little too academic to be erotica." Her bare feet were just visible in Shaw's line of sight, chipped black nail-polish on her toes.</p><p>Shaw finally looked up. Root's cheeks were still red from the cold and her hair was messy from having been under a beanie. There was a smile on her lips, but it looked nervous, like she got that there was something up.</p><p>"Sit down," Shaw said. She tucked a receipt in her book to keep her page and then set it aside, careful not to wake Grim who was sleeping off the two steaks he'd devoured raw an hour ago (Shaw had been extremely impressed). When she turned back, she found Root had sat down cross-legged on the floor across from her and was watching her warily.</p><p>"We're pooling our information," Shaw announced. She'd thought a lot about how to approach this and whether she was willing to have a real conversation with Root about trust and partnership and had decided in the end that maybe it wasn't time for that yet. There was still a conversation that needed to be had however.</p><p>"Which information did you have in mind?" Root asked. "I can think of a few...tips I could give you. More than a few if you don't need to be up early tomorrow."</p><p>Shaw scowled at her even if she had expected the evasiveness. "This isn't optional if you want to keep working with me. We're both playing with half a deck of cards and it's going to end up fucking us over. So now it's sharing time, starting with what you got up to in the subway after you activated that crafter's mark."</p><p>Root's eyes widened. "You were following me?"</p><p>"Seemed like a good chance your little side trip was going to be related to this mess, so yeah, I followed you."</p><p>"I didn't want to bring you because with the city trying to trap you it would have been more dangerous for you than for me."</p><p>Shaw fought down the annoyance of Root trying to protect her because she knew it was only going to sidetrack them right now. They could have <em>that</em> discussion later. "And because you didn't even tell me that, I followed you anyway, only you didn't know about it and I didn't know about any danger. Ignorance isn't safety, Root."</p><p>Root almost looked contrite, but recovered quickly. "And what about your dream?"</p><p>Shaw had expected that. "I said we both need to share what we know, and we do, but you get to go first for making me be the one to bring it up."</p><p>Root didn't look thrilled, but she nodded. "She says you're right."</p><p>"Obviously I'm right."</p><p>That got a tiny smile out of Root. "Okay, but I need to eat something first."</p><p>Shaw had considered not getting food for Root when she'd stopped at the deli on her way home, but in the end she'd given in and gotten her a sandwich because the last thing she'd wanted was Root trying to delay this conversation by having to go out and get food for herself. Once Root was settled at the table with her food, Shaw took the chair across from her, balancing a stack of cookies on a paper towel (her self-reward for having to start an uncomfortable conversation).</p><p>"What happened to your arm?" she asked through half a cookie.</p><p>There was a thin, red line wound around Root's forearm like a vine that almost looked like a burn.</p><p>Root considered it carefully between bites. "My guest pass expired." When Shaw glared at her she sighed and said, "You seem to know what the crafter's marks are, so you might have noticed that there was something different about the one in the subway."</p><p>Shaw pulled the folded up newspaper with her sketch of the mark on it out of her pocket and flattened it on the table. "I'd never seen one before, but I was told this line here isn't usually part of the design." Her eyes drifted back to Root's arm. "Is that…"</p><p>Root nodded. "When I activated the seal, the extra line wrapped itself around my arm. It let me pass through, but it also burned slightly the whole time. The fae like to make everything difficult."</p><p>"The fae. What were they doing down in the subway?"</p><p>"That's what I'd like to know. It was only one of them: your old friend Sneezy, and they wanted to give me a warning I think." Root licked her fingers off and sat back in her chair. "They pointed out that if we destroyed all the original artifacts, we'd be doing a great deal of damage to the human defenses against unnaturals."</p><p>"True, though less so now than back when they were first made. We've got better weapons now."</p><p>"We do, but it would still be a large blow to our defenses. I was curious why one of the fae would warn me about that given that they would benefit from us being weaker, and it turns out that our friend Sneezy is scared stiff that somehow we're going to bring the builders back."</p><p>"Could that happen?"</p><p>Root shrugged. "Who knows? No one knows anything about the builders so there isn't a great way to tell. The fae have no clue either, but Sneezy at least was worried enough that they wanted to warn us off the idea. Oh, and also, they wanted us both to come back sometime this week. There's something they want to show us."</p><p>Shaw was pleased in a petty way that Sneezy had required both of them to be there to see whatever it was. Served Root right for running off without her.</p><p>"And there's something else," Root continued a little hesitantly. "Back when I was looking for the fae artifact yesterday, I traced it to a hideout the crafters use, similar to the place I went in the subway today. One of the crafters there told me that some of the older infused artifacts are starting to run out of power."</p><p>"I didn't know they could do that." Shaw tried to think if any of the ones she had had ever given signs of running out of juice, but she came up empty. "Can they be recharged?"</p><p>"Unclear, but if we destroy all the original artifacts…."</p><p>"Then we won't even have infused artifacts left soon." Shaw had always imagined she'd have a few of them left. "Does the bureau know about this?"</p><p>"I don't know, but when they find out it's going to be a mess. Not only will they be after all the crafters and original artifacts with a renewed interest, but imagine how much more support Denton Weeks might get for his little warlock project. Warlocks are, of course, the other solution to protecting humans from unnaturals, and one with a much higher price."</p><p>"Do you think maybe they already knew? Maybe that's what started them down the whole warlock path in the first place."</p><p>"Possible, but I doubt it. If they'd known, there would have been other actions they'd have taken, and also I can't imagine them figuring it out before the crafters did." Root reached out to steal a cookie and Shaw begrudgingly allowed it because she was actually sharing information for once and good behavior needed to be rewarded.</p><p>"Anything else you haven't told me?" she asked as Root chewed thoughtfully on her cookie.</p><p>"Possibly, but nothing big I can think of at the moment." She dusted the crumbs off her fingers. "Your turn."</p><p>Shaw knew Root expected her to start with the dream, so she decided to start somewhere else completely just to be difficult.</p><p>"After you vanished in the subway, the city tried to trap me again. I ended up in some shadow world for a few minutes until Grim saved my ass." She looked over at where Grim was still asleep on Root's bed.</p><p>"This is why I didn't want to bring you to the subway meeting," Root said. "It's dangerous for you to--"</p><p>"This happened when I was walking down the street. If you'd taken me with you to your little meeting, then maybe it wouldn't have happened at all, and at least you'd have known about it if it did."</p><p>Root looked like she was on the verge of sulking, but she had absolutely no comeback to that.</p><p>Shaw nodded to herself in satisfaction. "Two other things. First, the dream I had the other night was about this big bear skull monster thing in the middle of a fire." She described the dream as best she could, trying to ignore how silly she felt about it.</p><p>"Definitely sounds like a fire elemental," Root said when she finished. "Maybe the same one that has the fae artifact now."</p><p>"Wish I knew what that wind elemental meant about accepting the invitation."</p><p>"Elementals tend to run with the belief that if a human can't understand their archaic and vague nonsense then they don't deserve to."</p><p>"Figures." Shaw rubbed at the back of her hand. "Maybe I'll have another dream tonight. But there's one last thing."</p><p>The small discolored spot on the back of her hand was basically invisible now, but she could still feel it, like a tiny icy pinprick on her skin. "I think a drop of whatever that blue stuff was in the transform glove must have seeped through and gotten on my skin. What was that shit anyway?"</p><p>Root bent over her hand, examining the spot closely. "I'm not completely sure. It was part of the original artifact, and the only way I could get the power to infuse into the glove correctly. Metal and stone usually work best, you know, but not for this one."</p><p>Root's finger brushed the spot on Shaw's hand and it was like a jolt of electricity shooting up her arm. She slapped her other hand over the first and pulled it away. "Did you two do that?"</p><p>Root smiled. "She wanted to have a look for Herself."</p><p>"You could have warned me." Shaw rubbed the back of her hand. "Did she find anything?"</p><p>"No, though She wonders if it's related to how much you obsess over that broken glove."</p><p>"I don't obsess over it." Though now that she thought about it, it seemed like she did take it out of the drawer it was in at least once a day. "How do we fix it? Can I cut it out?" She had a knife around here somewhere.</p><p>Root held up a hand. "As much as I appreciate some knife play, maybe before we start with the exciting dismemberment we should try an alternate route."</p><p>"Like what?" Shaw asked, only slightly distracted by the first part of Root's response.</p><p>"Like letting Her explore some other options first."</p><p>"How long will that take her?" If there was some foreign thing in her fucking with her mind then she wanted it gone immediately.</p><p>"She won't have an answer tonight," Root said firmly.</p><p>Shaw was still tempted to go get her knife and remove a chunk of flesh from her hand. She didn't want any unnatural hitchhikers along for the ride without permission. She scratched irritably at the cold spot until Root's hands closed over hers tried to tug them away.</p><p>"I can think of a much better use for your hands, sweetie."</p><p>Shaw defiantly scratched one last time and then allowed Root to lead her away towards the bed.</p>
<hr/><hr/><p>Root shivered as Shaw's fingers traced along one of the branches of the tattoo that stretched over her entire back. It was hard for her to explain in words exactly what the sensation was like, but the closest she could manage was as if there were threads being tugged that triggered various sensations in her body and mind, usually amplifying whichever feelings were currently strongest in her. Right now, the brush of Shaw's fingers made her whole body throb and ache for more contact. Shaw must have noticed because she chuckled and pressed a little harder.</p><p>"So this still works even when your god isn't around?" Shaw asked.</p><p>"The connection between us doesn't vanish when Her attention is elsewhere." Root was lying on her stomach on the bed with Shaw straddling her lower back. She could feel how wet Shaw still was from the two orgasms Root had given her a few minutes ago and the sensation of Shaw rubbing herself against her tattoo was overwhelming. The addition of Shaw tracing her tattoo up near her shoulders with her fingers only heightened that. "She's never 'around' in a physical sense, after all. She could be anywhere on Her world and I could be anywhere on mine and we'd still be just as strongly connected. She's just not focused on me at the moment." Her god was busy looking for more information to help them, though Root was vague on exactly what that meant. She rarely spoke about the others of her kind and Root hadn't met any of them when she'd been in Her world.</p><p>"Would She still notice if you were in trouble?" Shaw scratched one nail down her spine, just hard enough to sting and Root's hips bucked against the bed below. It was extremely hard to put together a coherent thought like this.</p><p>"She'd notice." She might have elaborated on that under different circumstances--Shaw chose the most inconvenient times to ask her for details.</p><p>Shaw got up abruptly which was almost a relief since Root thought she might have been another minute away from coming just from that and there was a lot more she wanted Shaw to do to her before that. She rolled over onto her side to watch Shaw stand up and stretch. Now <em>that</em> was a nice sight: well-defined muscles rippling beneath sweaty skin. The slightest hint of a smile suggested that Shaw was aware of the intensity of Root's gawking and quite pleased with it.</p><p>"Prop some pillows up against the headboard," Shaw requested over her shoulder as she crossed the room to her dresser. Root felt a thrill of anticipation--she knew exactly what Shaw kept in the dresser.</p><p>She had propped herself up in a nest of pillows when Shaw returned carrying a strap-on.</p><p>"No, that's for me," Shaw said as she slipped into the harness. "Get up."</p><p>Root was loath to leave the warm bed even for a second, but she saw where Shaw was going with it so she reluctantly got up and waited until Shaw was settled on her back up against the headboard. It was good thinking on Shaw's part, she conceded as she climbed back in. Having her back pressed into the bed limited Shaw's access to her tattoo and that was no fun at all. She and her god had been looking into ways around that, but they weren't quite ready to try that out yet.</p><p>"Always thinking ahead," she murmured as she swung a leg over Shaw. She grasped the dildo with one hand and guided it into herself, shivering as she sank down onto it slowly. Shaw shifted beneath her and the movement echoed right up into Root and made her clutch at Shaw's shoulders. Shaw's arms circled around her and her hands smoothed up Root's back sending ripples of pleasure through her nervous system. Shaw bent her legs up behind Root, trapping her in the cradle of her hips, and rolled her hips up once, experimentally.</p><p>Shaw had been all hot and bothered about sharing and teamwork, and, Root thought as they rocked into each other at a desperate pace, this was definitely good practice working together right now. Maybe they should practice more often.</p><p>One of Shaw's hands stroked patterns across her back and the other squeezed roughly at one of her breasts. The feeling of Shaw's hands on her while they were joined like this was absolutely everything Root had wanted for the evening. She leaned forwards to press their lips together and moaned into Shaw's mouth when the slight change in position let the dildo hit her just right.</p><p>It was nice having this time with just the two of them, the same way it was nice when it was just Root and her god, and when it was all three of them. Each was a different variety of pleasure and Root wondered how she'd gotten so lucky as to end up with both Shaw and her god. Her god had been the first to really need <em>her</em>, specifically, and the knowledge of that still warmed her every time she thought about it. Shaw hadn't needed her in the same way. She'd obviously been quite pleased with their arrangement back before Fairfield and more than willing to continue it once they'd finally reconnected, but since they'd both gotten back to the city it felt like maybe there was something else here, too. Maybe Shaw finally considered her a friend rather than just an ally.</p><p>Shaw's teeth caught her bottom lip in a sharp nip and pulled Root's attention back to the matter at hand. Her breath came out in harsh pants against Shaw's lips as she rocked herself faster and harder, chasing down her orgasm. Shaw's fingers slipped between her legs and, at the first touch, Root tipped over the edge and lost herself in a rush of pleasure that seemed to last forever and nowhere near long enough at the same time.</p><p>"Are you going to come again?" she asked when she finished. Shaw's hips were still bucking beneath her and her face was flushed.</p><p>"Yeah, just need a little more."</p><p>"Wait." She shushed Shaw's outraged response and slipped off the dildo with a grimace. The harness got tugged down Shaw's legs and tossed aside and they rearranged a little so Root could settle between Shaw's legs and put her mouth on her.</p><p>Shaw's fingers tangled in her hair as she used her tongue and teeth on her but she didn't pull at it. Her hand just rested on Root's head, fingers scratching back and forth lightly as her hips pressed insistently into Root's mouth. She didn't make a sound when she came, but her legs tightened around Root and her hips bucked up insistently.</p><p>Once Shaw had relaxed back into the pillows, Root crawled back up her body to kiss her again, letting Shaw taste herself in the wet mess she'd left smeared across Root's face.</p><p>"How was that for pooling our resources?" she asked.</p><p>Shaw actually laughed at that, and ran a teasing finger down her spine. "Definitely mutually beneficial, though, you know, it's not a one time thing. Always new things to--" Her fingers dug into Root's back and scratched down to just above her butt. "--share."</p><p>Root had thought she was done for the night, but the moan that pulled out of her said otherwise. Which was why she was indignant when Shaw tapped her thigh and gestured for her to get up.</p>
<hr/><hr/><p>"We'll have to pick this up again tomorrow, though. Reese and I have a job in the morning. Gotta pay the rent somehow."</p><p>Root considered offering to pay half since she was staying there now, but she worried that might make this too official and scare off Shaw. Or herself, if she was being honest.</p><p>"You want the first shower?" Shaw offered.</p><p>Root got up, shivering in the chilly apartment air. Even with the heating supposedly fixed this place was too cold for her liking. "I'll be quick."</p><p>Shaw had sat back down on the edge of her bed when Root came out of the bathroom a few minutes later and was frowning at the air mattress in the corner.</p><p>"Did my bed do something to offend you, sweetie?"</p><p>"Grim left. Guess I can't blame him." She almost looked like she was sulking. "I didn't even summon him earlier today. He just showed up out of nowhere to help." She looked up at Root curiously. "Do you have to summon your demon horse?"</p><p>"Bacchanalia isn't a demon, Sam. And no, not with an artifact anyway." She really missed Bacchanalia. It was unfair that horses weren't more common in the city.</p><p>"Hmm."</p><p>Whatever Shaw was thinking about remained unspoken, but she did hesitate before she went in the bathroom. "You can take half the bed again tonight if you want. I don't think my landlord did much of a job fixing the heat so the damn thing is probably going to go out again."</p><p>Root carefully controlled her expression. "Doesn't hurt to be cautious."</p><p>She fell asleep before Shaw got out of the shower, but briefly woke up again when she climbed into bed.</p><p>"Tomorrow afternoon, we're going back to see Sneezy," Shaw said as she settled in on her side of the bed.</p><p>"Fine by me," Root said through a yawn. "Maybe you can get more out of them than I did."</p><p>"Can you…" Shaw paused and Root was suddenly much more awake. "Never mind, it can wait until morning."</p><p>Shaw fell asleep almost immediately after leaving Root wide awake to wonder what the question had been.</p>
<hr/><p>Root could tell she was alone in bed when she woke up in the morning. It was far too chilly for Shaw to have still been next to her.</p><p>She rolled over to look out across the loft and found it empty. Maybe Shaw had gone out running? Her eyes fell on the shoes near the door. All accounted for. A tiny thread of concern twisted in the pit of her stomach.</p><p>There was a scent in the room that she hadn't noticed at first, but it seemed to fill her lungs and almost suffocate her even as her eyes fell on the new marks on the floor. The marks were black, scorched, and roughly in the shape of a large circle. A portal of some sort. A portal had opened in the middle of the apartment and now Shaw was gone leaving only the faint smell of smoke behind.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Elementals</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Do you know where she is?" Root asked the second she had her god's attention. "The fire elemental must have taken her, right?" It was the obvious conclusion from the evidence.</p><p>Her god couldn't watch Shaw the way She watched Root, and She'd been busy at the time so no, She didn't know. Root had set a small tracing spell on Shaw to let Her watch out for her, but going through a portal probably would have destroyed it. Root bit back her frustration as she pulled on her pants.</p><p>"The elemental plane, maybe it took her there. Can you get me there?"</p><p>She'd never heard her god be so emphatic with a response. A warlock showing up in another plane unannounced would be seen as an act of aggression and could lead to dire consequences for both Earth and Her world. She would not send Root there.</p><p>"Can you find Grim at least? He could find her anywhere I think."</p><p>Grim was missing as well apparently, which was potentially a good sign. Hopefully he was with Shaw. Root wasn't sure if he could do much against an elemental, but at least he'd offer Shaw some protection.</p><p>"There's got to be something we can do. I'm not sitting around waiting if she's in trouble." Her mind was racing through possibilities.</p><p>The gentle suggestion that maybe She could try to make some inquiries and that Root should wait before doing anything impulsive made Root clench her jaw. Well, if her god wouldn't help her, then maybe someone else would. Sneezy was a possibility, but she didn't want to get more indebted to the fae unless she had no other options. The other option was to willfully disobey her god and try and open a portal to the elemental plane herself. Her god might not be willing to help her do it, but she didn't think She could stop her either.</p><p>She was going to need backup though. It was hard to imagine her god cutting her off from Her powers when she was in danger, but with two worlds at risk Root didn't want to put Her in a place where She had to choose. Her options for backup were extremely limited, and, with great reluctance, she called the only person she could think of who would be willing to help her without any convincing at all.</p><p>"Hello, John."</p><p>"Root?" She could hear the surprise in his voice over the phone. "What's going on?"</p><p>"Shaw disappeared. There's traces of a portal on the floor of her apartment and I have good reason to believe she may have been abducted by a fire elemental. I'm about to try travelling to the elemental plane to find her, and I thought you might like to tag along." No way was she admitting she needed backup.</p><p>"I'll be there in thirty minutes."</p><p>He knocked on the door twenty-two minutes later and stormed in carrying a duffel bag and a backpack. The pack had an assortment of various infused artifacts that Reese lined up on the table for her inspection, and the duffel bag had more firepower than Root had ever seen in one place. There was even a sniper rifle and a grenade launcher.</p><p>Root was impressed despite herself.</p><p>"Where did you get all of these?" she asked, motioning at the artifacts.</p><p>"Shaw acquired a lot of them when we quit the bureau." Reese crouched down to examine the burn marks on the floor. "We're still not sure what a couple of them do."</p><p>"You should have asked me about them." She picked up a solid white crystal sphere and examined it. "Experimenting with them on your own is a good way to lose a hand." The sphere emitted a soft, yellow light and warmed in her palm. Celestial magic most likely.</p><p>"You weren't exactly around when we quit the bureau," Reese pointed out. He looked up from the floor. "You can tell what they do just from touching them? Is that a warlock thing?"</p><p>If it had been Shaw asking, she might have answered, but, since it was only John, she ignored him and moved onto the next artifact.</p><p>"Do you have an actual plan?" John asked as she picked up a set of rusted manacles with red stones set in them.</p><p>"Yes, but we're going to need all the help we can get." She was desperate to rush off immediately, but also aware that would likely get both of them killed. "This one." She held up a delicate metal tiara set with tiger's eye stones and handed it to him. "You should wear that when we leave."</p><p>John looked at it dubiously. "What does it do?"</p><p>"It will make sure you can keep breathing if there's no oxygen and provide you with some other basic protection against foreign atmospheres. Temporarily." She selected a few artifacts from the table and tucked them away into her jacket pockets. "Make yourself useful and pry up a piece of the burnt wood from the floor."</p><p>"Shaw won't like me destroying her floors," John said mournfully, but he pulled a knife out of his pocket.</p><p>Root left him to his work and went to gather some supplies from her stash of possessions. A handful of photocopied pages were the main thing she was after. The originals had all been lost in the fire that had claimed most of her things, but she'd been very careful about keeping multiple physical and digital backups of the important stuff. She fished out a piece of charcoal as well and a large black gemstone the size of her fist. John watched her curiously as she sat on the floor in the middle of the room and spread the pages out across her lap. She'd never done this before--not <em>this</em> exactly--but she had the theory down solid. She shuffled through the pages until she found the one she was looking for and then started to draw on the floor with the charcoal.</p><p>"You're going to try opening a portal," John guessed. "Have you ever been to the elemental plane before?"</p><p>It was easy to tune out John, but much harder to ignore the silence from Her. Root had never disagreed with her god before and she found that she hated it intensely. This was wrong. They were supposed to be working together, but she couldn't just do nothing.</p><p>"You missed a line."</p><p>She almost lashed out with her power and threw John across the room, but he was right--she'd left a line out of the complicated sigil she was drawing on the floor.</p><p>"Opening a portal isn't easy," John said. "Are you sure it'll work?"</p><p>"Nothing in life is sure."</p><p>"You'll need a big power source. Is that what the stone is?"</p><p>"In a way." She glanced at the dark gemstone and tried to ignore how she could feel it, like it was tugging at her mind. "It's like a battery, but it needs to be charged."</p><p>She expected him to keep asking nosy questions, but he stopped and vanished from her peripheral vision. When he came back--carrying his bag of guns--she was done with the sigil.</p><p>"Can you use both of us to charge that?" he asked, setting the bag down.</p><p>She was surprised that he'd figured out how the gem worked and shocked he wasn't trying to talk her out of it. She'd known he cared about Shaw, but she hadn't realized the level of his commitment.</p><p>"Yes, though once activated it will try to drain anyone connected to it."</p><p>"How do you break the connection?"</p><p>"Strength of will. Or destroying the stone." There was a reason she rarely used it.</p><p>"Let's do this then."</p><p>They sat next to the sigil, facing each other with the stone on the floor between them. Root placed two fingers on top of the cold gemstone and John mirrored her.</p><p>"I'm going to activate it," she warned. "Count to ten, slowly, and then take your hand back and break the connection. You'll understand how to when you try." Whether he would be able to was another matter.</p><p>The stone wasn't an infused artifact, but it operated similar to one--through intent. At her silent prompt, it came alive beneath her fingers, still, but projecting so much hunger she could feel it through her whole body. She could swear she felt it examining both of them in turn, and then...it started to feed.</p><p>She'd only used the stone once before, and she'd forgotten how intensely unpleasant it felt to have her life force drained from her. It was like exhaustion and weakness hitting her in a massive quantity all at once and making her joints ache. She could feel Her hovering in the back of her mind, distressed and protective. She might not approve of what Root was doing, but, Root realized, She would absolutely still step in to protect her. The knowledge of that made her throat tight and she pushed away the thought to concentrate on not letting the gemstone kill her.</p><p>John pulled back after ten seconds, and she could see his struggle, like he was fighting against a strong force trying to hold his hand in place. The stone wasn't full yet though and Root left her hand where it was.</p><p>"Root?" John sounded genuine in his concern, an unexpected surprise.</p><p>"Just a second more." Her limbs felt like lead, dragging her down and she could sense Her growing concern, but she needed to make sure they had enough energy to open the portal. Shaw's life might depend on it.</p><p>She was startled when a hand closed around her wrist and pulled her wrist back sharply. The tendrils of connection followed her from the stone, but she disengaged from them--once she lost contact the whole exercise got too dangerous to continue. Her eyes shot open and she found John kneeling next to her holding her wrist.</p><p>"You're going to need to be functional if we're really about to do what I think we are," he explained as he let go. "And if you get yourself killed it isn't going to help Shaw."</p><p>The gemstone gleamed on the floor in front of her. She considered being mad at John, but he wasn't wrong. Which was annoying as hell. "Let's hope it's enough then."</p><p>John stood up. "It's going to have to be. What next?"</p><p>Root picked up the stone, careful to keep herself closed off from it, and placed it in one of the circles near the front of the sigil. "Next we see if this sigil actually works."</p><p>"You haven't done this before?"</p><p>"I've opened portals to other planes before, but not to the elemental plane specifically." She stood up and grabbed her pack off the floor. "Be ready to go through the second it opens."</p><p>John stood next to her, half a step back while she looked down at the intricate design. Sigils like this weren't magical exactly, they were a way to trace the pattern of a world's energy, map out the weak points in the correct way to tear through to a specific plane. The pattern had to match a point in both the starting and destination planes exactly, like a key fitting in a lock.</p><p>Last time she'd done this she'd activated the sigil with blood, but she had better options now. She hadn't been sure her god would let her use Her power, but it still came readily at her call. The tendrils of power crawled out from her and touched the black stone, giving it a little push to get it started. The sigil on the floor came to life, white smoke rising from the pattern. There was a sensation like all the air being sucked out of the room and an unnatural silence, and then a rush of air and her ears popped.</p><p>A portal sprang to life over the sigil, dark and swirling. Through it she could dimly see a forest and what looked like a lake.</p><p>"Now." She stepped forwards without waiting to see if John followed and the world spun away.</p>
<hr/><p>Thick smoke choked Shaw's lungs and made her eyes sting. She crouched low to the ground, trying to get underneath the worst of the smoke, but the undergrowth made it hard. It wasn't a dream this time, she could tell. All the things that had seemed vague and inexplicable in the dream seemed extremely solid and real here.</p><p>What she wasn't sure of, however, was if she was still on Earth, or if she'd been pulled through a portal into a different plane. The fact she could (mostly) breathe was a good sign, and meant that wherever she was had a habitable atmosphere even if it happened to be full of smoke at the moment. The grass and trees surrounding her also looked like they could be from Earth, though probably not from New York. It was hard to tell much more since the fire creeping its way through the forest kept gaining on her, glowing embers getting carried ahead by the wind to engulf trees on all sides of her.</p><p>She'd been wearing her running clothes when the portal had rudely kidnapped her, but not shoes or socks, and the bottoms of her feet were taking a beating from all the sticks and rocks on the ground. That also meant she was having to move extra carefully to make sure she didn't step on any burning embers.</p><p>The smoke was the biggest problem, though. Fire was dangerous, but in her current situation she thought she could find a way out as long as the smoke didn't kill her first. The dry wind whipping through the trees only made the situation worse, seeming to blow more smoke at her rather than dissipating it.</p><p>It had to be the fire elemental behind this, she was sure of it, but the forest was empty of any enormous skull bears so far and she had no way of knowing where an elemental could be hiding here. If it was in the actual fire behind her then she was going to be rudely ignoring its invitation a second time because there was no way she was going to walk into that inferno.</p><p>There was a sharp pain in the sole of her foot and she cursed and bent down to examine the damage. A large splinter of wood had pierced the arch of her foot, deep enough to draw blood. Fortunately it was easy for her to pull out and the wound was tiny, but she wasn't pleased that she'd be putting an open cut down on the forest floor.</p><p>Something bumped her arm and she jumped, truly startled. She was on high alert and even with the sounds of the fire everywhere she would have thought nothing could sneak up on her, and yet a huge, black dog was sitting next to her, holding what looked like a thin, metal chain in its mouth. If she'd been grateful to see Grim back in the city the previous day then she was as close to ecstatic as she could ever get to see him now.</p><p>He dropped the chain at her feet and she picked it up to examine it. It was a necklace: a red stone set in a backing of twisted metal hanging on a chain. The last time she'd seen it, it had been in the drawer of her nightstand, hopelessly tangled with some hair ties, but the first time she'd seen it had been in Fairfield, when Root had given it to her to help her breathe in the heavy smoke. She quickly slipped it on and willed it to clear the smoke from her lungs.</p><p>"Good boy," she said when she could breathe normally again. "Think I owe you a whole cow this time. Don't suppose you know where we are?"</p><p>Grim whined and paced back and forth in front of her. While she'd been stopped to deal with her foot, the fire had closed in more, and even if she could breathe better now, the flames were going to become a problem soon.</p><p>"Do you know where the fire elemental is? Or whatever it was that brought me here."</p><p>Grim whined again and then set off through the trees. He headed away from the worst of the flames and Shaw didn't have a better idea so she followed after him. Now that she was no longer preoccupied with choking to death on smoke, she realized that she was actually cold. Yes, there was a rather large fire ripping the woods apart, and she could feel the heat from it, but the dry wind that roared through the trees was chilly. Not nearly cold enough to compare with the New York winter she'd left behind, but definitely not the weather to be running around in a tank top and no shoes in. If she was really on Earth still, that might narrow it down a bit.</p><p>She paused when she saw a solid wall of flame ahead of her. No, not a wall exactly, more like a clearing surrounded by a circle of flaming trees. Each trunk was wreathed in flame, and each branch glowed orange. It was beautiful and terrible. There was something inside, a dark shape moving. Grim looked back at her and then trotted forwards into the fire and stood there right in the flames. The fire split around him, bending to the sides as if repelled by some unseen force. Shaw could take a hint when she saw one and hurried to step over Grim and to the safety on the other side of the flames.</p><p>The clearing inside was filled with flames as well though they were clear and only visible as shimmering gas. Despite the fact the clear flames had engulfed the whole clearing, Shaw wasn't getting burnt. If anything she felt colder, like a strangle icy tingling was running through her whole body. She might have examined the feeling closer but, at that moment, the enormous bear with the skull head stepped through the fire on the other side of the clearing and stood before her again.</p><p>It was larger in person somehow, and the way its fiery ribs glowed right through its coat looked even more impossible. The empty eye sockets only had the slightest hint of flames dancing in them this time, and while the grass around its paws became scorched and black, there were no fires sparking up there.</p><p>A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she saw Grim had followed her through and was watching the bear, his lips drawn back in a silent snarl. The bear took two lumbering steps towards them and Shaw's eyes locked onto the paws, her mind putting things in perspective and realizing that each paw was larger than her head. This was an elemental, not a real animal, and yet there was something about it that felt so much like a wild animal in a way the ice elemental deer and the wind bird hadn't. When the bear stopped and stood up on its hind legs to tower over her, she damn near took a step back. Upright like this, the bear must have been close to eight feet tall. One swipe of those paws would be all it would take for this to end very poorly, especially with her without a weapon or escape route.</p><p>The bear looked down at her as if only noticing her now and the small flames in its eye sockets danced brighter. Shaw looked right back up at it, took a deep breath, and stepped forwards.</p><p>"Okay, you have my attention. Now why am I here?"</p>
<hr/><p>There was an awful second where Root couldn't breathe and it felt like her entire body was being pierced with a thousand burning cold needles, and then everything stabilized and she became aware of the fact she was lying on the ground. Slowly, she pried open her eyes, her eyelids stiff and heavy. Above her she saw branches and leaves blowing in a breeze she couldn't feel herself. There was something odd about the trees though, something unnerving and alien about them. Definitely not Earth trees.</p><p>Her memory returned in an alarming rush. Shaw. The gemstone. The portal. She must have made it through to the elemental plane.</p><p>"Are you okay?"</p><p><em>They</em> must have made it through, she corrected herself, because that was definitely John Reese's voice. She craned her neck to try and see him, but her whole body felt stiff and painful.</p><p>"I'm fine," she said, voice raspy. She could tell now that she had a shield of her god's energy around herself like a bubble and relief washed over her. Her god was still there with her, still protecting her. She could remember the feeling of the protective barrier she'd raised slipping away from her when she'd entered the portal. She hadn't expected that. The split second it had taken Her to raise a new one had almost been too long from the feel of it.</p><p>She gave herself another second and then sat up all at once, pushing through the pain and fighting down the undignified whimper that tried to crawl out of her throat. When the white haze of pain receded again, she saw John sitting on the ground nearby, watching her. He appeared to be in much better shape than she was which she put down to the tiara he wore. This was what she got for being generous.</p><p>"What happened to you?" he asked, and she could hear that edge of concern in his voice again. It made her want to do something quite violent to him.</p><p>"A slight miscalculation. I'll be fine in a second." Already she felt well enough to ignore the fading pain and look around herself. The forest they were in looked even more alien than she'd first noticed, and she felt a headache coming on as her mind tried desperately to categorize the alien shapes and plants around them into something logical. The elemental plane wasn't unlike Earth in many ways, but it was different enough that humans couldn't survive here unaided. The trees and other plants all looked like extra large versions of their Earth counterparts and even the rocks on the ground looked larger than expected. There was something that looked like a lake in front of them (though she didn't think anything could convince her to get in that inky water), and a heavy fog hung over it, billowing and slightly orange.</p><p>"Has anything shown up to greet us?" she asked as she rearranged herself to sit cross-legged. Standing up could wait a few more minutes.</p><p>"Haven't seen anything I'd classify as a life form, but there's that." He pointed to a nearby shore of the lake. The lake itself was too large to see across and the far bank was lost in the fog, but around the curve of the shore she could see places where the forest looked even odder than it did by them. The trees were blackened and twisted, almost like they had melted down where they stood.</p><p>"An elemental didn't do that," she said as her eyes traced the darkened scar of destruction. She'd seen damage like that before.</p><p>"That was my impression as well," Reese agreed. "Looks a lot like how that shadow demon we ran into destroyed things."</p><p>"Similar, certainly, though not quite the same." She couldn't have explained how, but she knew that it wasn't the same demon with absolute certainty. "Do you know what happened here?"</p><p>"How would I know?" John asked incredulously.</p><p>"I wasn't talking to you, John. Hush." Her god wasn't sure what had happened there, but She had some thoughts about it that confirmed Root's own suspicions. "I think we might be in an even worse situation than I'd imagined."</p><p>She carefully got to her feet and tried to sense the world around her to see if she could feel any unnaturals in the area, but what had been so easy to do back on Earth produced no results here. "I didn't think that would change when I went to another plane," she said with a confused frown. Unless She was limiting Root's powers, though it didn't feel like that.</p><p>The explanation she got from Her made sense, and she blamed the fact she was still not back to full functionality for why she hadn't figured it out herself. On Earth, feeling the approaching presence of a fae or an elemental was easy because they weren't native to the plane and stood out like giant beacons, but spotting an elemental on the elemental plane was much more difficult, though not impossible.</p><p>"How much worse is--"</p><p>"John. Hush." She shut her eyes and concentrated, not quite sure what she was looking for. A brighter point of light in the sea of energy that made up this plane perhaps. There was <em>something</em> out there, or maybe a lot of little somethings and then one much larger one right over--</p><p>Her eyes shot open. "Back away from the water, John."</p><p>John didn't question her and immediately picked up their packs and backed away with her. In front of them, the eerily-still surface of the lake started bubbling violently and a huge patch of darkness beneath the water grew larger and larger until it erupted through the surface. Waves of black water slammed into the shore, droplets spraying at both of them. A large shape emerged from the water and stalked up the beach towards them. It took Root a second to place what she was seeing. Her first thought was that it was a moose or an elk, but, as her brain continued to try and contextualize the enormity of the creature, she realized that even a moose was too small to explain this. It was easily nine feet tall with antlers that stretched wider than it was high. The face and body of it resembled a moose more than anything else, the fur was dark brown but had swirls of greens and greys in it, and slimy leaves like seaweed hung from its antlers. Mushroom-like fungus sprouted up from its spine in a variety of different colors, and there was a smell that accompanied it--like rotting vegetation and brackish water--that made her want to gag.</p><p>"What is that?" John asked in a whisper.</p><p>"I'm...not sure." It was definitely an elemental, but not one she'd heard of before. That wasn't too shocking since only a handful of elementals lived on Earth so they hadn't seen even a fraction of them. She hadn't known whether to expect them to still look somewhat like Earth animals here on their own plane, but even though the landscape here was definitely different from Earth, it had enough similarities that perhaps it also shared similar types of animals. Or maybe they just changed into these forms to deal with humans.</p><p><em>"You are foolish to come alone this time."</em> The voice was unpleasant and made the inside of Root's head ring as if struck.</p><p>"I can assure you, this is the first time I've been here," she said. She could feel her god's emphatic suggestion that she remain courteous and belatedly added, "We're not here to cause trouble."</p><p><em>"Your kind are a threat to all worlds. We disposed of the others, and we will not hesitate to dispose of you as well." </em>One massive hoof pawed at the sand and the creature shook its head, sending drops of water spraying everywhere.</p><p>Root felt a chill run down her spine. "You don't mean humans, do you?"</p><p>
  <em>"Not humans. Abominations."</em>
</p><p>"What's it talking about?" John asked.</p><p>"Warlocks. The fae called us abominations as well."</p><p>"I thought you were the only one left?"</p><p>Root looked at the blackened scar in the trees. "Apparently not." She eyed the elemental speculatively. Her god was definitely more powerful than it, but would She allow Root to attack? "How long ago did the other abominations come here?"</p><p>The elemental tossed its head from side to side before answering. <em>"If you truly are not here to cause harm, then you should leave before others arrive. Not all here would talk before striking."</em></p><p>"We're just as eager to be gone as you are to have us leave, but we're here searching for a friend," John said. "We have reason to believe a fire elemental may have abducted her."</p><p>
  <em>"I know nothing of this. There are no humans in this world."</em>
</p><p>"The elemental in question was aligned with fire," Root hurried to add. Soon, this elemental would grow tired of their questions and then they'd have to leave or fight. "It took the form of a large bear with a skull for its head. Have you seen it before?" She elbowed John. "The piece of Shaw's floor you took."</p><p>John pulled the piece of scorched wood from his pocket and held it up. The elemental took a step towards them and its nostrils flared several times as if taking in their scent.</p><p>
  <em>"You do not serve the same ones as the other abominations did."</em>
</p><p>"We're not allied with them," Root agreed. "They want us dead most likely." Or in one of those control cuffs Greer had tried to use on her.</p><p>
  <em>"I will speak with the one you serve directly, or will we not speak at all."</em>
</p><p>A few very rude responses came to mind, but Root held her tongue. Her god felt eager for the conversation and Root allowed Her to reach through her to contact the elemental. It was like a warm breeze flowing through her that washed away just a little of the exhaustion she hadn't even realized she'd been fighting against. She couldn't hear the discussion that followed--like a small child sent out of the room while the adults spoke--so there was nothing to do but wait.</p><p>"Are they talking?" John asked. She'd almost forgotten he was there. He looked a little ridiculous in the too-small tiara, clutching his bag of guns, but she was strangely glad for another human face here in this alien world.</p><p>"They are, but I'm not sure how it's going. Listen, if it comes to a fight, you need to stay near me or I won't be able to protect you."</p><p>"I'd say I don't need protection, but in this case I think that'd be a lie," John said as he looked at the huge deer a few feet away from them. "Is that a swamp elemental?"</p><p>"That might be the most accurate term, I guess. I've never seen one like that before."</p><p>John started to respond, but stopped when the elemental moved. It turned away from them and walked back into the lake, the waters churning around it until it vanished beneath the black surface.</p><p>"It's going to make some inquiries," Root relayed to John. "She says it'll come back in a little bit and let us know if Shaw is on this plane. We're supposed to wait here and not cause trouble in the meantime."</p><p>"I hate waiting."</p><p>Root agreed, but stayed silent. John didn't have an ancient, powerful god in his head who was already tense over the situation and liable to forcibly shove Root through a portal to somewhere else if she got out of line. "Maybe we can go look at the trees over there?" She pointed to the dark scar on the bank nearby. "If other warlocks showed up here and attacked…." This day just kept getting worse.</p><p>Since there was no objection from either Her or John, Root gathered up her pack and led the way down the beach.</p>
<hr/><p>Shaw wasn't sure if she'd call what she was doing having a staring match, because she wasn't sure if it was possible to have a staring match with something that didn't have eyes or eyelids, but she didn't have a better term for the activities of the last few minutes. Except maybe 'boring'. She'd tried prompting the giant fire bear to speak several times with no result, and had considered throwing a stick at it but had dropped it when Grim had whined at her.</p><p>"This is stupid," she said finally and turned her back on the bear. She needed the damn artifact, but nothing was getting accomplished here. The wall of flames around the clearing was still intact and, since Grim didn't look like he was planning to open up a passage for her again, she started eyeing the trees in the area. Maybe she could climb one and jump over the fire to another tree on the other side.</p><p>A noise behind her made her spin back around, heart racing with a surge of adrenaline and ready to fight. The bear was still up on its hind legs and, as she watched, plunged one of its massive paws into its own chest, right between its fiery ribs.</p><p>"What the fuck," Shaw said softly as she watched. How the hell had she ended up here dealing with the weird unnatural bullshit? This was the sort of ridiculous shit Root enjoyed, not her.</p><p>The bear's paw emerged from its chest, now holding something glowing and red. It lowered its paw enough that she could get a clear view of the thing. It looked like a heart at first glance, the anatomical kind, but upon further inspection the similarity faded and she could see it was a shiny reddish-black stone the size of her head shot through with neon-bright red veins.</p><p>"That's not the artifact I'm after," she said as she examined it. It didn't look like something that could hold a fae (she couldn't say for certain that the way an artifact looked mattered, but no fae artifact she'd seen had ever clashed horribly with the fae's aesthetic and she suspected that wasn't an accident), and she just <em>knew</em> somehow that it had nothing to do with the builders.</p><p>
  <em>"Release."</em>
</p><p>It was the first thing the bear had said to her and she looked back up at its head, startled. She'd been starting to think it couldn't talk.</p><p>"Release?" Her mind spun and settled on the most obvious conclusion. "I don't have the artifact that lets me undo original artifacts anymore. Mine broke and no one knows where the original is." She looked back at the red stone again, and again had the fleeting impression that it resembled a heart. "Is a buddy of yours in there? I thought elementals didn't care about each other."</p><p>The bear regarded her for a long moment, head tilted to one side. Then it calmly stuck the stone back into its chest, an action that made Shaw grimace. Who the fuck carried rocks around in them?</p><p>
  <em>"Show you where. Then you help. Then we give you yours."</em>
</p><p>"Show me where what--"</p><p>The bear's paw swept towards her and she braced herself to dodge, but then it slowed and a single over-sized claw touched her lightly on the forehead. There was a buzzing like blood rushing to her head and grey spots swam before her eyes. She caught glimpses of a place, far from there, with corridors and rooms deep underground. And there, in the center, was a single, small room surrounded by a blue glow that felt familiar.</p><p>Her vision cleared and she was back in the clearing panting for breath.</p><p>"Stay the fuck out of my head," she growled shoving the enormous bear paw away from her. "You're supposed to <em>ask</em> before you give people creepy visions, asshole." She looked down at Grim, but while he definitely was alert, he didn't look ready to fight. The bear dropped back down to all fours, bringing its face much closer to hers than she'd have liked. "So, you want me to free whatever is in that artifact you have there and in exchange you'll give me the one I'm after? And the place you showed me is where the builders' artifact is, right?"</p><p>
  <em>"Yes."</em>
</p><p>Finally, a direct answer. Though she was getting the impression that this elemental wasn't being deliberately obtuse, but just wasn't used to or good at communicating with humans at all.</p><p>"Who's in the artifact? Friend of yours?"</p><p>
  <em>"Sapling."</em>
</p><p>"Right, I'm just going to pretend that's an answer that makes sense." Shaw sighed, suddenly exhausted. She was ready to get the fuck out of here and sleep for about a year, preferably on a world where fire didn't exist. "Look, if you give me the fae artifact now, I'll still help out your friend there. If the fae get too impatient, they're likely to do something unpleasant to me and then no one gets what they want. Okay?"</p><p>The bear just regarded her in silence, either turning her offer down or not understanding it.</p><p>"Just fucking great." Why did every part of this mission just make things more complicated? "Fine, I was planning to get that other artifact anyway, so why not."</p><p>This seemed to satisfy the giant bear because it turned away and lumbered off right through the wall of fire and into the woods without another word. Shaw still kind of wanted to throw something at it, but settled for glaring until it vanished. The wall of fire died down and left her standing in a burnt-out section of the forest with only Grim for company. The main fire was no longer in the immediate area as far as she could tell, and the air had cleared a little.</p><p>"Any idea how to get to civilization from here?" she asked Grim. "I mean, if there even is such a thing on whatever this world is."</p><p>Grim got up and ran a few steps ahead and then looked back at her expectantly. She followed him through the smoldering remains of the woods leaving the clearing behind.</p>
<hr/><p>"If you keep glaring like that, you're going to set a fire."</p><p>John's voice startled Root and she dragged her gaze away from the rotted log she'd been focused on.</p><p>"We'll find Shaw," John said, with forced assurance in his voice. "And it's not like she can't take care of herself."</p><p>Root looked out across the still, black water of the lake. It'd been over an hour (or what felt like an hour to her) since the elemental had left and after a fruitless examination of the blackened forest they'd ended up sitting on the edge of the forest looking out over the lake. It was the first time since she'd woken up and found Shaw gone that she'd taken a moment to sit down and think things through and all that had done was make her more upset and frustrated.</p><p>She was a warlock! She was supposed to be powerful and strike fear into the hearts of every species in all the worlds, but here she was stuck on a beach in a strange world unable to even help the one person she cared about. And on top of that, if Shaw wasn't here then she might have just ruined her relationship with her god, the only other being she cared about, for nothing.</p><p>She really wanted to hurt something.</p><p>"How many warlocks do you think were here?" John asked. "There's so much destruction, but warlocks can take out entire towns so…."</p><p>Root looked back at the woods, glad for a distraction. "I'm not sure. Maybe two?" It was hard to tell what had happened, but there'd definitely been a fight of some sort. "I think it was a test, like Fairfield." It made sense now that she thought about it. Testing a warlock's power against a town of defenseless humans didn't prove much, but sending them in to fight elementals at their full power was something else altogether. It was madness, though. An act like that could have set off a war. Had Denton Weeks and the bureau been behind that or had Greer acted alone?</p><p>"What're we going to do about it?" John asked. "If there really are other warlocks running around then we're in a lot of trouble."</p><p>"We need to find out more before we do anything, and we can't do that until we're back on Earth. And finding Shaw comes first."</p><p>"It does," John agreed. "But where do we look next if she's not here?"</p><p>"I'm still figuring that out." She hadn't had any ideas yet, and her god had been quiet. It was truly pathetic that the only one she could count on right now was John Reese.</p><p>Something tapped her on the leg and she looked down to see John holding out a bottle of water.</p><p>"I brought some water and energy bars along," he explained with an awkward lopsided smile. "Figured we might need them if we had to stay here a while."</p><p>"Thanks." She should have thought of that, but it was beginning to dawn on her that maybe she hadn't been thinking too clearly since she'd found Shaw gone.</p><p>She only had a moment of warning, a bright flash within her mind alerting her to the presence of something large and powerful approaching. "John, we've got company." She climbed to her feet and peered out across the lake.</p><p>"Is it the swamp elemental?"</p><p>"No, it...it feels different." Her god couldn't tell what it was either, but She agreed that it was something new. "Maybe we should back up into the woods a little."</p><p>A blast of water shot from the lake and jetted towards them. Root barely had to think to raise a protective barrier around them and the water smashed into it and fell away leaving them unharmed. The lake was churning and frothing furiously but nothing broke the surface.</p><p>"What's down there?" John asked, pulling what looked to be a grenade launcher out of his bag. "And can I shoot it?"</p><p>"I'm not sure about either of those questions." She wondered if she could electrocute whatever it was, send a spark into the water and fry everything. That would probably cause a lot of collateral damage and get them in even more trouble though.</p><p>Another presence lit up in her mind and this time she recognized it. The swamp elemental was back, somewhere out there in the lake as well. The two points of light converged on each other and the water sprayed everywhere. In the foam and waves she caught sight of a massive scaled form like a snake and a brief glimpse of antlers. A few more seconds of struggling and then one of the energy sources moved away and the other approached them. The giant swamp elemental deer broke the surface of the water and walked up the beach towards them, black water dripping from its coat.</p><p>
  <em>"Your friend is not on this world and neither is the elemental you speak of. It has not lived here for centuries."</em>
</p><p>"Is there any way to find it?" Root asked desperately.</p><p>
  <em>"No, and you will leave now. You have attracted attention and the one I dealt with is only the first to arrive. If you do not leave now, you will die."</em>
</p><p>"There must be something you know that could help us find her." This was the only lead she had. She couldn't just give up on Shaw.</p><p>
  <em>"I have already done more than I should have considering what you are. You must leave immediately or I will not shield you from the consequences."</em>
</p><p>John tugged on her arm. "Root, I think we'd better do what it says."</p><p>"I'm not giving up."</p><p>"Neither am I, but this is a dead end."</p><p>All the remaining fight went out of her and she slumped. How was she going to find Shaw now? John was right though, they needed to get back to safety first.</p><p>"Can you open a portal back for us?" she asked Her. Hopefully since they were now going back to Earth She'd be willing to help.</p><p>The portal formed on the beach in front of them, dark and swirling. She could see glimpses of Shaw's apartment through it, looking exactly like how they'd left it.</p><p>
  <em>"If you truly are the enemy of the other abominations, then you should know that if they continue this behavior it will end up starting a war that none of us want."</em>
</p><p>Root looked back from the edge of the portal to see the swamp elemental regarding her.</p><p>"There's a demon behind this, a shadow."</p><p>The elemental snorted, water shooting from its nose. <em>"The ones who were here did not answer to a shadow."</em></p><p>"Maybe not, but it's the one pulling the strings. Humans aren't its allies, not really. It's using our kind as well."</p><p><em>"That is troubling." </em>The elemental looked back at the lake. <em>"Leave. Now."</em></p><p>Root thought she saw something massive moving out in the water in the split second before she turned and stepped through the portal. There was an endless moment of disorientation and then she sprawled onto the hardwood floor of Shaw's apartment a few feet away from John.</p>
<hr/><p>Shaw was covered in sweat, ash, cuts, bruises, and dirt when she finally stumbled free of the woods and found herself faced with the most unlikely thing ever: an asphalt road. The road wound its way out of the woods and down across a wide open plain beyond which she could see the distinct shape of buildings in the distance. There was a sign on the side of the road with a bunch of city names and mileage numbers to tell drivers how far they were from the larger cities in the area. One of the furthest ones she recognized immediately and it filled her with a wave of relief.</p><p>Sacramento. She was in California on Earth. She hadn't left the country even if she was all the way on the other side of it. She could get home.</p><p>There was a car on the side of the road, abandoned with its door hanging open, maybe left by someone fleeing the fire.</p><p>"That's our ride, boy," she said to Grim. She hobbled down the road towards the car, leaving the burnt forest behind. When she reached the car, something made her look back at the trees. Was there something there? For a moment she thought she saw an unnatural darkness filling in the space between the tree trunks, but then it was gone and she wondered if she'd really seen it after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I started working on this fic back in April when California wasn't under siege from two of the largest fires in state history (and a bunch of other smaller ones), and it feels like bad timing posting it now. I don't think it's much of a mystery why fires have shown up as threats in my writing several times now. I always had a fascination/terror of fire as a kid and moving to California, a state which has horrendous wildfires every year, has definitely made a very big impression on me. Anyway, it gets mentioned later in this fic, but the fire elemental is in no way responsible for the fires. It just lives in them. It'd feel wrong to blame them on something supernatural when so many of them are caused by humans and the increase in size and number of fires is fueled by climate change. The good news is that none of the current fires are near me and it's grossly humid in my area right now which is a very good thing in terms of fires not starting/spreading. And since that's still not a very cheery note to end on, Shoot bang a lot next chapter so something to look forward to!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Diner</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>there's some root/shaw/the machine in this chapter</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The roadside diner that Shaw parked her dubiously acquired car at seemed to be open for business as usual, as if there wasn't an enormous forest fire only a thirty minute drive away. And while a thirty minute drive was actually pretty far, the fact that everything between here and there had been fields of dry grass had convinced Shaw that she wouldn't want to stick around this area if she had the choice. Hopefully she didn't have to stay too long.</p><p>She got a few strange looks from the patrons of the diner when she entered the place (which she guessed was understandable since she was covered in ash and barefoot) and the hostess who came over to greet her looked like she was ready to kick her out until Shaw made a vague excuse about having been caught in the fire up north. The change in attitude that brought was almost surreal and she found herself given a booth to sit in, a huge pitcher of iced water, and an offer of any food she wanted on the house. People here were used to the tragedies caused by fires, and the fact she was barefoot and without her wallet or phone didn't seem odd to them in the circumstances. She got the impression she might not be the first person to stagger out of the woods without any possessions and make their way to this diner. Something about 'fire season' and 'Diablo winds' that sounded like the plot of a disaster movie. She made a mental note to never move to California and asked if someone had a phone she could borrow to 'call her brother'.</p><p>There was only one phone number she had memorized and she jabbed the number pad on the actual land line phone behind the counter and hoped that Reese had left his cell on.</p><p>"Hello?" Reese's voice sounded tense.</p><p>"Reese, it's me."</p><p>"Shaw. Where are you? Are you okay?"</p><p>Shaw glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot of her and lowered her voice. "A bit singed, but fine. That fire elemental teleported me to somewhere in northern California and now I'm stuck here without my wallet or gun." She looked down at her sore feet. "Or shoes."</p><p>"She's fine. She's in California," Reese said, voice slightly further away like he'd turned his head from the phone.</p><p>"Who's there with you?" she asked. There were some muffled noises over the phone that almost sounded like a struggle and then a new voice came over the line.</p><p>"Shaw? Are you okay?"</p><p>Root had been the most likely person for Reese to have been with and yet Shaw still had difficulty imagining the two of them alone in a room without murdering each other (though the fact that Root now had the phone didn't bode well for Reese).</p><p>"Yeah, I'm fine. What's going on? I was only gone for a few hours." She didn't think she'd ever heard Root sound quite so frantic.</p><p>"There was...I can fill you in later. Where are you? Is Grim with you?"</p><p>Shaw craned her neck to look out the window of the diner. Grim was sprawled out on a patch of grass outside. He was supposed to be keeping watch, but it looked a lot more like he was rolling around in the dirt. "Yeah, he's here. Why?"</p><p>"She's going to try to contact him again. If She can get a fix on where he is then I can get there within the hour. I need you to tell him to talk to Her though." The frantic edge in Root's voice had vanished and she sounded like herself again.</p><p>"Uh, sure, I guess I can tell him that." This day just kept getting weirder. "Can you bring me some shoes? And maybe a change of clothes? Oh, and my wallet I guess."</p><p>"Of course. You're...not in danger still, right?"</p><p>"Don't think so. Why?"</p><p>Root ignored the question and instead asked, "Can you give me the address you're at as well? Just in case."</p><p>Once Shaw got off the phone, she made a brief trip outside and knelt down to pet Grim who was meticulously clean despite his dirt bath. "Uh, so, I don't get how this works, but Root's god buddy wants to talk to you so they can come get me, I think, and I'm supposed to tell you to talk to her." Shaw rolled her eyes. "I think I've exceeded my limit of weird shit for one day." She scratched him behind the ears once more before getting back up. There was no sign of the fire creeping over the horizon the way she kept imagining it would, but there was a line of thick, black smoke rising in the distance.</p><p>She decided to wait for Root inside the diner since there was an endless supply of ice water and the staff even offered to cook her a free burger. While she waited for the food, she went to wash up in the bathroom and scrubbed as much of the ash off her face and arms as she could. There were way more little scrapes and sore spots all over her than she'd realized, no doubt from running through the underbrush. She did her best to clean off the bottoms of her feet with wet paper towels, but she figured that'd have to wait until she got somewhere with a real bathroom.</p><p>When she left the bathroom she saw there was a woman sitting at her table in the seat across from where she'd been sitting. The woman had long brown hair and the obvious assumption should have been that it was Root, but something about the way the newcomer held herself made Shaw positive that this wasn't her. Her suspicions were confirmed when she got back to her table and saw the woman was a stranger to her.</p><p>"Can I help you?" Shaw asked as she sat down. Her meal had arrived while she'd been gone and she glanced down at her plate to check if the intruder had stolen any fries, but as far as she could tell it was undisturbed.</p><p>"I'm not supposed to be here," the woman said by way of greeting, "but I was in the area and I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about." Her face was set in a smile that Shaw thought could best be described as premeditated. Whoever this woman was, she was definitely not some random crazy person. No, she was a very specific crazy person.</p><p>"The fuss? You mean the food here?" Shaw asked, knowing full well that wasn't what the strange woman meant. If people were going to keep getting deliberately cryptic at her then she was just going to be deliberately obtuse at them in return.</p><p>"You really have no idea, do you?"</p><p>Shaw dunked a fry in ketchup and ate it while staring blankly at the other woman. She'd been teleported across the country, trapped by a wildfire, and confronted by a giant elemental bear. She'd hit her limit for the day.</p><p>"Are you going to keep sitting there and annoying me? Because I'm about to lose my appetite and waste all this free food and I'm not going to be happy about that." In spite of that statement she started in on her burger because she was starving and it smelled amazing and if she was going to get in a fight then she wasn't going to do it on an empty stomach.</p><p>"I can see why you and John get along. Same sense of humor."</p><p>Shaw narrowed her eyes as she chewed on her burger. Whoever this woman was she held herself like someone who knew how to fight--military maybe. And apparently she knew Reese. That narrowed down the possibilities. "Are you going to get to the point any time soon?"</p><p>"Oh, there's no point to any of this, I'm afraid. Everything you're doing is pointless. A piece of advice though, if you want it?"</p><p>Shaw ignored the question and pillaged her dwindling supply of fries.</p><p>"In this game, the more power you have, the less safe you are. Sometimes it's safer to stay a weak nobody."</p><p>Shaw thought about taking issue with the 'weak' part of that, but decided that it would be rude to destroy the diner after everyone there had been nice to her. "Awesome. Thanks. Does this mean you're leaving now?"</p><p>The woman's smile widened, showing a hint of teeth. "I'll leave you to your meal. We'll undoubtedly meet again, Shaw." She stood up and climbed out of the booth. "Tell John I said hi," she called over her shoulder as she walked away.</p><p>Shaw watched out the window as the woman walked around the corner of the diner and out of sight. If she'd driven there she must not have parked in the parking lot, though Shaw felt like it was a safe bet she'd gotten there by other means. More damned portals probably. Grim had stood up on his patch of grass and was staring after the woman, ears back and snarling. He settled down after a few minutes, but stayed alert, staring off in the direction she'd vanished.</p><p>Shaw finished her burger in silence and relaxed back in the booth. The craziness of the day had worn her out and now that food had been taken care of she was ready to pass out for a few hours. Hopefully Root could just zap them both back to her apartment instantly or something. Maybe. She wasn't sure she was up for being zapped across the continent again now that she thought about it.</p><p>It was another ten minutes before Root showed up, blowing right past the hostess's attempts to greet her and almost knocking a small child over in her hurry to get to Shaw's table. She stopped next to it and stared at Shaw like she hadn't seen her in years. Shaw glanced her over as she finished her glass of water. Root had a leather jacket on, one which she hadn't worn much lately because of the cold in the city, and Shaw could see the place her shirt bulged a little at the side where she had a gun tucked in her pants waistband. It was good to see a familiar face after the day she'd had and especially good to see Root looking particularly ready to kick some ass.</p><p>"Hey, sweetie. Are you ready to get out of here?"</p><p>"Definitely." Shaw wiped her hands off and eyed the bag Root was holding. "Is my wallet in there?" Her meal might have been free, but she still left a tip before she followed Root outside, a habit that had been ingrained into her back when she'd been a kid.</p><p>"I brought shoes for you," Root said when they got to the sidewalk. "And clean clothes."</p><p>"How were you planning to get us back to New York?" Shaw asked as she sat on the curb and slipped her feet into the pair of running shoes Root had brought. Even with how beat up the bottoms of her feet were, it still felt good to have the shoes on. "Can you just open a portal or something?"</p><p>"Unfortunately it's not that easy. Opening portals within the same plane is fairly tricky and quite dangerous. It can cause a lot of damage on both sides of the portal even with the best planning. What we <em>can</em> do is go back the way I came."</p><p>"Which was?"</p><p>"I travelled to Her world and then back to this one. Much safer. Think of it as going around a pot hole rather than over it." (Shaw chose not to think about it at all). "Time and distance are a little confusing when hopping between planes, but I think it took me about two hours to walk to somewhere in Her world where She could open a portal to here. Obviously it took less time from your perspective."</p><p>The idea of a two hour walk through another plane was not at the top of Shaw's list of ways to end her day. "I'm going to get a hotel room here tonight, and then tomorrow we can discuss this portal business, or I can fly home if you don't want to stick around."</p><p>Shaw had expected an argument, but Root just nodded like she'd expected it. "I'll stick around."</p><p>Shaw had also expected Root to demand the full story of her day once they were in the car, but Root passed out against the window of the passenger's seat within minutes and stayed asleep for the whole drive. Maybe Shaw hadn't been the only one to have a rough day. She flicked through radio stations--volume way down--to keep herself entertained and let Root sleep.</p><p>The hotel they found was in the closest large town that was a relatively safe distance from the fire and it was fairly decent as hotels went. Shaw let Root handle booking the room since Root didn't look like she'd been rolling around in an ashtray all day and tried not to be too impatient as she waited. Grim had vanished when they'd left the diner and while she was sad to see him go, at least they didn't have to smuggle him in. His steak reward could wait until the next time he showed up.</p><p>The room Root had booked them was a double which Shaw guessed was considerate of her even if it was technically more beds than they had back at her apartment. She debated if she wanted to pass out right away, but the need to be clean and get some of the smoke smell out of her hair won out and she went to take a shower instead.</p><p>Root had packed not only clothes for Shaw, but a good amount of the medical kit that Shaw had in her apartment. While the shower water heated up, Shaw gave the bottoms of her feet a thorough examination for any stray bits of forest that might have gotten lodged in them. Her soles ached, but were mostly intact much to her surprise. The shower felt amazing and also made her realize how much her whole body was sore from the day. Once she was clean she filled the tub with hot water and climbed back in to relax.</p><p>Five minutes into soaking, there was a knock at the door. She'd almost forgotten Root was there and that maybe it was rude to monopolize the only bathroom for so long.</p><p>"Can I come in, Shaw?"</p><p>"Yeah, it's fine." It wasn't like Root hadn't seen her naked before.</p><p>Root slipped inside and shut the door behind herself. She'd changed into a pair of cotton shorts and a thin shirt that looked like what she usually slept in.</p><p>"I packed an overnight bag for both of us," Root explained at her curious look. "Just in case." She walked over to the tub and sat down on the floor next to it, her back against the wall so she was facing Shaw. She looked exhausted now that Shaw took the time to look, like all her energy had been drained away. Her nap in the car must not have helped enough.</p><p>"What did I miss?" Shaw asked as she watched her.</p><p>"Shouldn't that be my question?"</p><p>"Probably, but I asked first."</p><p>A ghost of a smile flickered over Root's lips and she nodded. "I woke up and found you gone with traces of a portal having opened on your floor."</p><p>"What sort of traces?" Shaw asked with a growing sense of dread.</p><p>"Scorch marks."</p><p>"Fuck. There goes my security deposit." She'd rather deal with demons than New York landlords.</p><p>"I naturally assumed that the fire elemental we'd been after was the most likely culprit and recruited John to try and track it down. We hit a dead end, but we did find out something a bit disturbing: at least two warlocks invaded the elemental plane at some point in the recent past, possibly a test to see how they fared against the inhabitants."</p><p>There were a lot of questions that revelation raised, but one in particular. "You went to the elemental plane?"</p><p>Root nodded again. "Briefly. We didn't learn much. We weren't sure where to try next after we got back, but fortunately you called John right then."</p><p>There was undoubtedly more to that story, but it could wait. "Other warlocks, huh? That's bad."</p><p>"Very bad. I got the impression they were weak compared to the other two we've faced--and compared to me, of course--and didn't survive their stay, but their existence is still bad news." She leaned her head back against the wall. "It's not going to be enough to kill the warlocks this time. We need to destroy the shadow demon for good or this isn't going to stop."</p><p>"I'll add that to my to do list." As if it wasn't long enough already. "We haven't even seen the damn thing, or a warlock in a pact with it. You'd think it would have made an appearance already."</p><p>"Maybe it's waiting for something."</p><p>Shaw thought back to the darkness she'd seen at the edge of the woods. Could that have been it? There was no reason for some super powerful demon to hang out here though. "It can keep waiting."</p><p>Root slipped one hand over the side of the tub, and let her fingers dangle into the water. She didn't move to touch Shaw and appeared to be simply enjoying the warm water between her fingers. "Your turn."</p><p>"Well, you were right about the fire elemental. It dumped me in the middle of a forest fire and didn't even bother to show up for about half an hour. Grim helped me find it in the end and even then it wasn't chatty. It does claim to have the fae artifact, but it won't give it to me until I can free some other elemental from an original artifact it has. Weird, since I thought they didn't care about anyone else."</p><p>"They usually don't."</p><p>"It called the other elemental 'sapling'. Not sure if that's a name or an elemental type. Like a forest elemental or something."</p><p>"Hmm, maybe neither. Elementals don't reproduce exactly, but some spilt a part of themselves off to form a new elemental. She says that they're very close to the juvenile elementals for the first hundred years or so. Maybe that's who's in the artifact. A sapling could be its way of describing a young elemental."</p><p>"Makes more sense than anything I can think of." Shaw sank down in the water so she was submerged up to her chin. "Anyway, I obviously can't free anyone yet, but it showed me where I can find the builders' artifact."</p><p>Root looked up sharply from the water. "It knew where it was?"</p><p>"Yeah, and you're not going to like this. It's in the bureau headquarters in a vault underground." She'd recognized the hallways even if she hadn't been to that specific part of the building before. If she could get inside she thought she could find it, but breaking into the bureau would be a pain in the ass. And getting out would be worse.</p><p>"Well, that's a complication."</p><p>"Sure is, but one that can wait until tomorrow. I'm done for the day." She dunked her head under the water and shook the droplets from her face when she came back up. Root was slumped against the side of the tub watching her with an intent expression that didn't look anything like the normal leer she had when Shaw was naked in front of her. "You look pretty done, too. Travelling between planes is that tiring?"</p><p>"Something like that."</p><p>Shaw's expression must have projected her annoyance that Root was back to being cryptic because Root sighed and elaborated. "It took a lot of energy--life force energy--to open the portal and I'm recovering. It's not serious."</p><p>Shaw could have said a lot of things about how Root's history of recklessness with her own life made that statement suspect, but that was yet another conversation that could wait for now.</p><p>Root stood up and stretched. "I wouldn't mind a shower when you're done in there, but don't rush on my account." She leaned back down with one hand on either side of the tub so she was hovering over Shaw. "I'm always a fan of you naked and wet."</p><p>Shaw probably should have taken mercy on her because of how obviously tired she was, but the temptation was too great and she grabbed the front of Root's shirt and yanked. Root ended up in the tub on top of her, spluttering for breath as bath water sloshed over the edges of the tub and onto the floor.</p><p>Shaw wiped the water out of her face and smirked. "Guess we're both wet now."</p>
<hr/><hr/><p>Root clumsily rearranged herself so she was straddling Shaw's waist and holding onto the sides of the tub. She looked kind of pathetic with her stringy wet hair, but the way her thin (and now somewhat transparent) shirt clung to her was definitely a plus for Shaw. Root got her balance back and humored Shaw with a smile.</p><p>"Sweetie, I don't think this tub is big enough for the both of us."</p><p>It was a bit of a tight fit, but Shaw didn't feel like getting out yet. Root braced herself against the sides and started to get up, but Shaw lunged up to grab her. In her mind she'd imagined smoothly flipping Root around and pinning her against the back of the tub, but the reality was bumped elbows and everyone getting kneed and a mess of limbs that took some time to sort out. The end result was what Shaw had wanted though: Root where she had been moments before, trapped underneath her with the remaining water soaking her shirt even more.</p><p>"You sure about that?" Shaw asked as she braced herself against the back of the tub with one hand and hovered over Root.</p><p>Root's eyes flicked to the tensed muscles in Shaw's arm and then back to Shaw's face. "Maybe I spoke too soon." She squirmed around, trying to grab the bottom of her shirt.</p><p>Shaw nodded to herself in satisfaction and then smacked Root's hands away from her shirt hem. "Leave that, but lose these." She helped Root struggle out of her wet shorts and tossed them aside to land on the bathroom floor in a sodden heap. The water churned as they both tried to move at once and Shaw's leg ended up between Root's, pressing up against her. Root's fingers fumbled to get a grip on the edge of the tub even as her hips jerked forwards to get more contact. Shaw decided she very much liked having Root trapped like this.</p><p>"I thought you were done for the day," Root said a little breathlessly.</p><p>"I'm done with anything having to do with unnaturals--" Shaw's finger traced a line down Root's neck. "--or portals--" She dug in her nail just slightly as she mapped a path across her collarbone. "--or artifacts." Her hand came to rest on Root's chest, thumb nestled in the hollow of her throat. "Not done with you yet." That predictably got a smile out of Root, and Shaw leaned down to wipe it off her face by biting her lip and then pressing their mouths together. Her plan had been to get Root off first and then move things back to the bedroom, but when Root's fingers brushed up the inside of her thigh she realized her plans might have to be rearranged. And when she slipped her tongue into Root's mouth, Root's fingers pushed into her and all thoughts of moving elsewhere fled.</p><p>The bathroom was warm and humid and full of the soft splashes of water as Shaw rocked her hips into the movement of Root's fingers. Root's free hand curled around her hip, and Shaw's free hand settled against the side of Root's neck, her thumb resting on Root's pulse point. She broke off the kiss and her forehead dropped to press against Root's shoulder as she came, far faster than she'd expected.</p><p>The water was warm and Root was comfortable and she didn't feel like climbing off her right away so she relaxed and enjoyed the way Root's damp skin felt against her own. If she wasn't careful she could fall asleep right here. But as the last remnants of her orgasm faded away, she became aware that Root's arms were wrapped around her, almost tight enough to be uncomfortable. She wasn't crazy about cuddling, but this felt more like a hug than anything else and she was even less comfortable with that.</p><p>She tapped Root's arm. "Let me up."</p><p>Root released her immediately and Shaw picked herself up and sat on the edge of the tub, her feet still in the water. Root had that shit-eating grin on her face that she'd expected, but there was tension running through her whole body that was impossible to miss.</p><p>"Something wrong?" Shaw asked. "You want to call it a night?"</p><p>"Not yet." Root pushed off the back of the tub and rearranged them so she was sitting between Shaw's legs looking up at her. "I'm not done with you yet either."</p><p>Shaw could have pointed out that she'd barely gotten to touch Root at all yet, but instead she let Root push her legs further apart and canted her hips forwards to meet Root's mouth. Her balance was a little precarious in that position and she steadied herself with one hand on Root's shoulder. In this position she had a clear view of Root's back and she could see the dark lines of her tattoo through her thin, wet shirt. She dipped a finger down the back of Root's collar, brushed a finger along the line of the design closest to Root's shoulder, and watched her shiver at the touch. Root pulled back for a second, her eyes dark and hungry as she stared up at Shaw through her eyelashes.</p><p>"Wait your turn, Sameen."</p><p>Shaw's fingers crept back towards Root's tattoo. "Or else what?"</p><p>"You'll find out the hard way." Root gave her one last warning look and then leaned back in. Shaw was tempted to push her luck, and maybe on a different day she would have, but right now having Root's tongue working skillfully between her legs was too good a thing to risk.</p><p>Her hand came up to tangle in Root's hair and with her other hand she braced herself on the edge so she could rock her hips faster into Root's mouth. She still almost slipped backwards off the edge when she came again and only Root surging up to grab her kept her steady.</p><p>"We need a better tub for this sort of thing," she said after she'd caught her breath.</p><p>"You don't even have a tub," Root reminded her. Her fingers traced lazy lines up Shaw's back. "We could get a room at a fancy hotel for a few nights when we get back, something with a hot tub maybe."</p><p>It sounded nice, but…. "I think we're going to be really busy when we get back." But maybe she'd think about finding a place with a tub after her lease was up. Or after she got evicted for the scorch marks.</p><p>Root sat back down in the water and a glint of light caught Shaw's eye--the metal cuff earring that ran the length of Root's right ear. She'd forgotten about that in her enthusiasm to dunk Root in the tub. "Maybe you should dry that off so it doesn't rust," she said, tapping her own ear to clarify. Root didn't like her touching that ear, which was understandable given that having a forced, unnecessary stapedectomy had probably been traumatic.</p><p>"It won't rust," Root assured her. "It's practically indestructible actually. She made sure of that."</p><p>"Does she have any input about the whole day?" Shaw asked. She was still getting used to the fact they had this invisible ally with an unprecedented amount of knowledge about unnaturals. Some unnaturals anyway.</p><p>"Nothing that I haven't told you already, though She definitely wasn't a fan of my trip to the elemental plane. Something about how sending a warlock there might start a war." Root settled herself against the far side of the tub, the water barely up to get waist. "It was fine though. We had a talk about it on my trip over here and we've sorted things out."</p><p>"You went to the elemental plane without her help?"</p><p>Root looked down at the water, and made small waves with her hand under the surface. "She helped once I got there. She wouldn't let anything happen to me."</p><p>Which meant Root had run off to another plane without her god's help and with only the faintest hope of finding Shaw there. More recklessness, though Shaw appreciated the spirit behind the rescue attempt, however misguided. Maybe it was something they should talk about eventually, but at the moment she didn't want to ruin the evening with anything that serious. Root sitting between her legs in the warm water with her shirt still plastered against her skin was not something to rush away from. Although sitting on the edge of the tub was rapidly becoming uncomfortable now that she didn't have Root's mouth to distract her, and she still hadn't gotten to touch Root nearly enough. "Let's move to the other room."</p><p>Root finally peeled off her soaked shirt and it joined the shorts on the floor on the way to the bedroom. She lounged on top of the sheets on the closest bed and watched Shaw expectantly, lower lip caught between her teeth. Shaw looked at her speculatively and then back over at the bag she'd brought. "You up to trying something new?"</p><p>"As long as it doesn't require too much energy on my part. I'm a bit drained tonight." Root was smirking though, clearly pleased with where things were headed. "Why, what're you plotting, Sameen?"</p><p>"Thought I might use a belt to tie you up." The headboard didn't have anything she could use to tie her to, but she could make something work.</p><p>Root's eyes lit up. "There's a belt I packed for you in the bag and another one...wherever my pants are."</p><p>Shaw fished around in the bag to find it and instead found another bag inside, a much fancier drawstring bag that had suspiciously-shaped bulges in it. "You seriously stopped to pack a bag of sex toys on your way out the door?" Though if anyone would, it would be Root.</p><p>"Hmm? Oh! Those are the ones I keep in my emergency bag all the time."</p><p>Shaw rolled her eyes (because somehow that was even <em>less</em> surprising), and opened up the bag to see what Root thought were emergency necessities. Based on the selection, Root's idea of emergencies involved her both being able to get herself off in fun ways and also having sex with someone else. Why she couldn't put this much foresight into the rest of her plans was beyond Shaw. Sadly, she hadn't included handcuffs or any other types of restraints so Shaw just grabbed the belt and the bag and headed back.</p><p>"Did you two make up enough for her to get involved in this?" Shaw asked as she held up the belt. Root held her wrists out in front of her without hesitation much to Shaw's surprise. The amount of trust Root had in her didn't make any sense, but even though it made her uncertain, it also gave her a contradictory nudge of confidence. She concentrated on looping the belt around Root's wrists and pushed her conflicted thoughts away. The look of the black leather wrapped around Root's wrists turned out to be a fantastic distraction, as did the way Root looked up at her from the bed.</p><p>"She wouldn't object to joining in," Root said, testing out how much give she had with the belt. "What were you thinking?"</p><p>Shaw shrugged. She was too tired to think of anything fancier than some light bondage tonight. Root's god hadn't been running all over multiple worlds today so she could deal with the planning part this time. "Whatever she's game for." She held up the velvet bag. "I'm going to go wash this stuff so I'll be back in a minute. You two feel free to start without me."</p><p>When she got back out to the bedroom, Root had laid down on her side facing the bathroom door. Her face was already flushed, her lips parted, and her hips were rocking forwards rhythmically in response to some unseen touch. She smiled when she saw Shaw wearing the strap-on that had been in the bag, but the smile was wiped away by a moan as she writhed on the sheets. Shaw barely suppressed a noise she suspected would have been a whine at the sight of her. She watched for a few seconds, drinking in every tiny movement of Root's body. Root's hands tangled in the sheets above her head and her wrists twisted against the belt. She looked like she was already on the verge of coming from whatever it was her god was doing to her.</p><p>"I said start without me, not finish without me," Shaw muttered as she climbed onto the bed. She pushed Root's hip to roll her over onto her stomach so she could see the tattoo on her back. By this point she knew what to expect--the shimmer of color dancing in the lines making it look like the whole design was moving--but what she'd never seen before were the little lines branching off from the main pattern and crawling out across Root's skin like veins. The branches crept down around her sides, up over her shoulders, and down onto her butt.</p><p>"This is new." Shaw touched one of the branches right at the top of Root's butt and Root jerked against the bed. "Does that hurt? What is this stuff?"</p><p>"It doesn't hurt," Root murmured half into the blankets. "Not in a bad way anyway. It's something we've been trying out recently, a way for Her to expand Her contact with me. It's not permanent, like the tattoo, and She can only maintain it for a short while."</p><p>"So she's made you extra sensitive in more places?" That could be fun.</p><p>"She thought we all might enjoy that."</p><p>Shaw watched the lines still creeping out over Root's skin. Was this at all similar to how some warlocks changed appearance when channeling power from their patrons? The design wasn't anything like what the other warlocks had looked like. They'd looked inhuman, but Root just had intricate patterns of tree branches and vines growing across her skin. Shaw ran her hand along Root's side and watched how the new lines moved beneath her touch, almost like they were real.</p><p>"Shaw, you can play with it later." Root sounded far too demanding for someone as strung out as she was. She pulled away from Shaw enough to roll over on her back and hooked her ankle around Shaw's hip. "Come join us."</p><p>The vines had wrapped around Root's ribcage, Shaw noted as she moved between Root's legs. With Root's bound arms still above her head, Shaw could see every inch of the pattern as it spread up towards Root's breasts and down across her stomach at the same time. Small leaves and branches curled off the main pattern in intricate detail. She tore her eyes away and spread Root's legs apart wide to make room for herself. Root's god had more than taken care of the foreplay so she lined up and pushed into her in a single, smooth stroke. Root's hips tilted up to take her in deeper and the moan she let out was loud enough that Shaw spared a thought for maybe seeing if Root's god could soundproof the place. She rocked her hips a few times and stared as the inky lines on Root's skin seemed to pulse in time with her movements. Interesting.</p><p>Root's legs wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer. Shaw could see her trying to lift herself up to kiss her perhaps, but struggling with her arms bound and useless. She smirked and shifted her position so she was up on her knees--Root's lower body supported by her legs around Shaw's waist and and Shaw's hands lifting her--and used her new leverage to thrust into her hard and fast. Root's head fell back against the bed and her breasts bounced as Shaw pushed the length of the strap-on into her over and over.</p><p>Root's eyes were shut tight, unusual for her, and Shaw had a suspicion. "You two doing that pervy watching us from above thing again?" She was completely sure how it worked, but, from how Root had described it, her god was able to watch them from an outside viewpoint within a close range of Root, and she could let Root see what she was seeing. Which meant in this case Root would be able to watch them fuck from an outside perspective.</p><p>Root opened one eye, a mischievous grin on her face answering the question even before she spoke. "I love watching you fuck me, sweetie."</p><p>"I bet. Any way to share the fun?" She'd looked into a couple of options involving mirrors for her apartment, but most ideas had seemed impractical, and it was just immensely <em>unfair</em> that the other two got a great show and she was limited to her own range of vision.</p><p>"She thinks--" Root interrupted herself with a low moan that sent a shiver through Shaw. "She thinks that maybe it could work. Put your hand on the lines."</p><p>Shaw lowered her just enough that she could free up one hand and run it up Root's stomach and across those pulsating lines. The effect was instantaneous as Root writhed wildly under her and her legs tightened around Shaw more, but even as Shaw watched she felt something tugging at her mind, like a thread that stretched up through her hand and arm all the way to her head. It took her a second to force herself to relax and not fight the pull, and then….</p><p>She'd imagined that it would be like watching from a camera from above, but it wasn't even remotely that simple. She could see every angle and every part of both of them and the bed all at once. There was her back rippling as she drove her hips into Root, and there was the single drop of sweat rolling along the curve of one of Root's breasts, and there was the trembling in Root's legs where they were locked around her body urging her on. She could watch up close the way the strap-on, shiny with lube and arousal, was sliding in and out of Root, and also watch the way the curling lines of Root's tattoo had crept up onto her own hand.</p><p>"Holy shit," she both watched and felt herself say.</p><p>"Isn't She amazing?" Root murmured beneath her.</p><p>"Yeah, amazing," Shaw agreed as she watched herself shift the angle of her hips and saw the view from all sides of Root desperate and wild beneath her. It was odd to try and maneuver while watching herself from the outside, but she managed to lean down and claim Root's mouth and that looked good too. There was an edge of strangeness to seeing herself intimately entangled with someone else, but mostly it was just really fucking hot.</p><p>Root moaned into her mouth and her bound hands came down to tangle in Shaw's hair. There was no doubt she was very close, much to Shaw's disappointment--this was a fun new thing and she would have liked to experiment with it more, but Root had said she was tired and they'd already gotten far more carried away than planned (which was clearly <em>not</em> Shaw's fault) so, instead of drawing things out, Shaw sped up, pushing Root that last little bit over the edge. Any regrets she had faded watching Root from all around them as her orgasm flowed through her in an almost visible wave and the ink lines of her tattoo rippled and pulsed. A few more hard thrusts and she followed after, only seeing the start of her own orgasm before the connection broke and she slammed back into her own head in a roil of pleasure.</p><p>It took her a good five minutes before she recovered enough to form words.</p><p>"Goddamn." She'd said no more weird unnatural shit today, but maybe she'd spoken too soon. "That was definitely new."</p><p>Root must not have hit the point where she was fully coherent because she just hummed and pushed her face up against Shaw's neck.</p><p>With Root still happily limp beneath her, Shaw pulled out of her and tossed the strap-on to the floor to be dealt with later. She carefully undid the belt from around Root's arms and rubbed at the red marks it had left on her skin. She looked down to see that the extra tattoo lines were all creeping back down Root's sides and disappearing even as she watched, leaving behind unblemished skin. Any trace of the tattoo on her own hand was long gone and she couldn't remember if it had even felt like anything given how distracted she'd been. Something to investigate at a later date because she was definitely game to try that again.</p><p>"What else does that do?" Shaw asked as her eyes followed the retreating patterns. "Does it let you access more of her power?"</p><p>"You can ask all your questions in a minute, sweetie," Root murmured. "Come here first."</p><p>Shaw crawled up her body and let Root pull her in for a deep, sliding kiss and a bit of casual groping which okay maybe was the more natural follow-up to fairly intense sex than jumping right into questions. So maybe her priorities were a bit out of order, but it wasn't like she'd had partners with erotic tattoos from another world before. When they finally pulled away, both a little breathless, she slid down just enough that she could prop her chin up on Root's chest and look up at the content, lazy smile Root was favoring her with. Definitely much better than how far away she'd seemed earlier.</p>
<hr/><hr/><p>"Can I ask questions now?" she asked after what she considered more than an appropriate amount of time. Maybe if she stayed here and let Root pretend they were cuddling she could get some answers.</p><p>Root laughed at her and reached down to play with strands of her hair. "The extension of the tattoo can give me access to more of Her power at once. It's like--" She pursed her lips and traced a finger along Shaw's cheekbone as she considered. "--like if you had a bottle of water with a very small opening at the top. You'd be able to pour all the water out eventually, but if you made the opening wider you could empty all the water faster. The amount of power I can access doesn't change in totality, but it might allow me to access more of it at once."</p><p>"And the sex thing is just a bonus."</p><p>"A very good bonus, yes."</p><p>Root seemed to be into petting her tonight, which Shaw might have protested against if the entire day hadn't caught up with her and left her feeling spent. Root's fingers scratching lightly through her hair felt nice rather than intrusive. "Is it dangerous though, that much power?"</p><p>"Not what we just did now, no, but if I was actually channelling Her power it could be, I suppose."</p><p>That was good at least. She would have been pissed if it had been dangerous to Root during sex and Root hadn't told her. "Is that all it does?"</p><p>Root's fingers had worked their way down further and she kneaded Shaw's shoulders. "Well, it goes both ways, you could say. She could use it to control me more, though I'd have to let Her have that sort of access to start with."</p><p>"You two had a fight earlier and you still trust her that much." She didn't fully understand Root's bond with her god, but she was very aware of how deep it ran.</p><p>"We disagreed, and then we talked about it later. She'd never hurt me, not without permission."</p><p>That part Shaw believed. Back when Root had first had her tattoo, her link to her god had been strained by the fact her god was stuck in an artifact, and the result had been that Root had been in a great deal of pain whenever she'd used her powers, but all those occasions had been by Root's own doing, or with her approval. Root's god wasn't the same as something like the shadow demon, who Shaw could easily imagine using a human warlock to death. They still had no way of knowing how much control either of the warlocks they'd faced had had over themselves.</p><p>"You talked about it?" she asked, scornful but teasing. "How mature of you."</p><p>Root cuffed her gently on the side of the head, but there was amusement in her eyes. "I heard a rumor that communication is a useful skill, something about the necessity of sharing information when you're working with others."</p><p>Shaw smirked. "Sounds like a line someone fed you to get you to spill your guts about your illicit rendezvous with a fae in the subway."</p><p>"I thought John was the one having illicit rendezvous with the fae."</p><p>"I hope so, for his sake. Turns out sex involving unnaturals is underrated."</p><p>Root looked pleased with that and went back to running her fingers through Shaw's hair. "I was thinking earlier, about Fairfield."</p><p>After being stuck in the fire earlier Shaw had been thinking about it, too, though she suspected that Root's reasons were different than hers. "What about it?"</p><p>"I should have let you know I was okay sooner. After I escaped the bureau, I mean."</p><p>"You were hiding off the grid and then in a town with no way of contacting the outside world," Shaw pointed out.</p><p>"I could have figured out a way to let you know if I'd really tried," Root said, eyes fixed on her own fingers in Shaw's hair. "I know you weren't sitting around worrying about me or anything, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have let you know."</p><p>"What brought this on?" Shaw asked warily. She hadn't been sitting around worrying about Root, but Root's disappearance had definitely crossed Shaw's mind more than once and yeah maybe it would have been nice to know she was okay. They didn't need to have an awkward conversation about it though.</p><p>Root shook her head. "Nothing. I'm just glad you're okay." Shaw only had about half a second to realize that maybe what they'd actually been talking about had more to do with what Root had been feeling today than what she'd felt back after Fairfield before Root started talking again. "We should probably go to sleep soon. We still have to get back tomorrow and things have only gotten more complicated with everything that happened today."</p><p>"Agreed." Shaw reluctantly got up and went to clean up in the bathroom. At least they'd had a fun night before they had to dive back into dealing with fire bears and angry fae and the stupid goddamn bureau.</p><p>Root took a fast shower after Shaw finished and Shaw settled into the bed they hadn't made a mess of. If she said nothing, Root would probably just sleep in the wrecked bed without complaint, which would be kind of a dick move on Shaw's part, and, while she was generally a fan of dick moves, Root <em>had</em> defied her god and travelled to another plane of existence to try and save her earlier. So when Root came out of the bathroom (naked since the clothes she'd brought to sleep in had been tragically soaked), she shuffled to the far side of the bed and pulled the sheets back a little. She had her eyes firmly shut so she didn't have to see Root smiling all soft and sappy at her. The bed shifted as Root slid under the covers on her side.</p><p>"Did you want to fly back tomorrow?" Root asked her as she settled in. "I can get us tickets."</p><p>Shaw hadn't been looking forward to going back to New York through a portal to some other plane. Maybe someday when things were calmer that could be fun, but she'd had enough of portals for one week. "Yeah, that might be good."</p><p>"She'll wake us up early enough so we have time to get breakfast first."</p><p>A god as an alarm clock. Seemed like overkill. "Wonder what the food's like here."</p><p>"Probably terrible, but better than being stuck on a plane with you starving to death for five hours."</p><p>Shaw chuckled. "Good point."</p><p>It was strange, Shaw thought as she drifted closer to sleep, how what had started as a terrible day for both of them had ended up so well once they'd been back together.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Fae in the Subway</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Root had some minor regrets the next morning when she woke up still exhausted. Possibly <em>more</em> exhausted. The crystal had been a terrible, if necessary, idea and she hadn't gotten nearly enough rest to make up for it, and then, despite telling herself that she was going to go to sleep early and not have a lot of sex, she'd proceeded to have a lot of sex instead of going to sleep early. She felt she wasn't fully to blame for that, though, since Shaw had been the one to start it. All of which was why she didn't feel even slightly guilty about falling asleep and slumping over on Shaw during the flight back, especially since Shaw seemed to have fully recovered from her own adventures the previous day (and also didn't shove her off which was a nice surprise and worth the crick in her neck).</p><p>They took a cab back from the airport to Shaw's apartment and Root had to stop herself from climbing into Shaw's bed and going right back to sleep. Instead she sat at the table and watched Shaw examining the scorch marks on her floor in a state that Root might have described as genuine distress if it had been anyone else.</p><p>"They're not that bad, Shaw. I'm surprised you actually care about a couple marks on your floor."</p><p>"<em>I</em> don't. The landlord will. Getting a place in the city is hard enough as it is already." She pointed accusingly at the place where John had pried a small chunk of the floorboard up. "What the hell happened here?"</p><p>"Oh, John did that. No idea why." John had probably gotten more sleep than she had and that meant he was better suited to stand up to Shaw's wrath over her ruined floor. She was sure he'd understand the little white lie.</p><p>Shaw finally gave up on her floor and walked over to the windows to look out at the street. It was supposed to snow again later, and the air had that crisp bite to it that was extra painful on exposed skin. Unfortunately, staying indoors wasn't an option.</p><p>"Should we get started on a plan to break into the bureau?" Root asked. If she had to stay awake then they might as well make good use of the time. "I'm assuming you want to go after the artifact they have." And even if Shaw didn't want to, Root definitely did. Some things were too dangerous for the buffoons in the bureau to have.</p><p>Shaw shook her head. "Let's go see Sneezy first. They're not sticking around forever and it sounded like they had something important to show me."</p><p>Root had almost forgotten about that. She wasn't eager to take Shaw down into the subway when the city was after her, but as long as Shaw kept her doppelganger ring on, she should be fine. Which brought up the interesting question of how the elemental had tracked Shaw down when she was wearing it. Maybe it had a different way of tuning into energy signals than most beings did, or maybe it had already gotten a fix on Shaw. It might be possible to do a test if she had access to--</p><p>"Root."</p><p>She looked up to see Shaw watching her and realized she'd let her mind wander off again. She really <em>was</em> exhausted. It had been incredibly stupid to use that crystal, especially since it had ended up being a dead end. Her god, who had been mostly silent today, was more <em>pointedly</em> silent about that thought.</p><p>"Sorry, yes, let's go see Sneezy first."</p><p>Going back out into the cold was every bit as horrible as Root had imagined it would be, and while it would have been easy for her to protect herself from the cold with Her help, she felt strange using Her power so casually after the previous day. After all, she'd ignored her god and could have put several worlds at risk of a war and all for nothing. They'd discussed it during Root's walk though Her world (a long discussion that had been closer to a sharing of streams of consciousness than a dialogue), and she felt better now, but still shied away from using her warlock powers unless she had to.</p><p>When she'd made her pact originally, her god had insisted that it be a partnership. Root would be able to access all of Her power and She could use Root to channel Her power, but both of them had veto power over any and all of that sharing. At the time, Root hadn't cared that much about if She had power over her--the idea of being completely at Her mercy had felt appealing then, like she would be merely a vessel who was serving a greater purpose--but that had changed and she was glad now that She'd insisted on that equality. It wasn't that she trusted Her less (the opposite, if anything), but that she'd realized that maybe she had things she cared about outside of her role as Her warlock and maybe there was something to be said for preserving a part of herself for herself.</p><p>"Usually I'm the quiet one," Shaw said as they headed down the steps into the subway station. "We can do this tomorrow if you need to pass out again."</p><p>Root dodged answering by distracting Shaw with her magic subway fare trick. Sure she wasn't using Her power as much, but she wasn't going to be reduced to actually paying for things <em>legally</em>. There were limits to her contrition.</p><p>"I asked Reese to meet us at the station," Shaw said when they got down to the platform. "I figured he's Sneezy's favorite so maybe he can get something out of them."</p><p>"Good idea."</p><p>Shaw looked at her strangely. "A few days ago you would have had a list of reasons why Reese would fuck things up. I'm gone for a few hours and you two are buddies now, huh?"</p><p>"I can say something scathing about him if it helps." Shaw could never know that she was glad that John would be joining them. There were still way too many things after them and they could use the backup and John had been useful yesterday. And reliable.</p><p>The subway train pulled into the station and Root took an extra second to look it over before deciding it was safe. It didn't hurt to be careful. She lapsed back into silence once they sat down in the nearly empty car and wondered if she had time to take a nap before they reached their station. Even a little bit of sleep might help.</p><p>"What was the elemental plane like?" Shaw asked out of nowhere.</p><p>Root thought back about the forest and the lake and the swamp elemental. "Large. It was like stepping into an earlier Earth time period maybe where there were still massive creatures of all types."</p><p>"Were there dinosaurs?" The hopefulness in Shaw's voice was endearing.</p><p>"Not that I saw. We mostly dealt with an elemental that came out of the lake that looked like an oversized moose with mushrooms growing on it."</p><p>"Still sounds better than my day." Shaw slouched so she could rest her head on the windows behind them. "What about the warlocks you said had shown up there?"</p><p>"I got the impression the elementals had managed to kill them, but not before they'd done a lot of damage. I think they must have been weaker than the ones we've run into previously, maybe sent there as cannon fodder to test the elementals' strength."</p><p>"You said they weren't directly linked to the shadow, right?"</p><p>"The energy there felt different, but I would assume they were allied with it somehow. It's rare for demons to form an alliance, and if the shadow is planning to take over other worlds, it'll need more than just one warlock."</p><p>"Makes you wonder how many more of them are out there right now."</p><p>It did and it was a very unsettling thought. "If it's working with Greer and Decima and he's still working with Denton Weeks, then we're not going to be able to count on the bureau to help with that. Not that I'd count on them much anyway."</p><p>"If the ISA isn't involved with Weeks' bunch we might be able to pit them against each other. Control is a bitch, but she hates Weeks' guts."</p><p>"You have an idea for that?"</p><p>"Not really, but it's worth keeping in mind."</p><p>Shaw seemed to have said all she had to say because she fell silent again for the rest of the ride.</p><p>John Reese was waiting for them at their stop, leaning against one of the metal pillars on the platform. He straightened up as they got off the train and exchanged a nod with Shaw that was probably his way of expressing that he was glad to see her. Root envied their familiarity, but she still smiled at John when he looked at her and made it less condescending than she might have a few days ago.</p><p>"We're going down on the tracks?" John asked as they approached the end of the platform.</p><p>"Try not to step on the third rail, Lurch, or you might turn into Frankenstein's monster for real." She couldn't help herself, but it came out more as teasing than scorn.</p><p>The station was largely empty, enough so that they could drop down and quickly enter the tunnel without being seen. The crafters' mark with the extra green line in it was still on the wall where she'd last seen it. "I think if we all place our hand on it at once it should let us all through." Sneezy had originally intended for more of them to show up, so hopefully that still held true.</p><p>The green line crawled up her arm the second she touched the mark and she felt a slight tug that she hadn't felt last time but couldn't place. But since the in-between world they ended up in looked the same as last time, she figured it couldn't have been anything too important. Maybe a side effect of the exhaustion.</p><p>"This way, and keep an ear out for the trains. They're not the same here, but they're still dangerous."</p><p>Shaw and John stared around themselves as they walked, taking in the alternate subway landscape.</p><p>"This used to be a crafters' hideout?" Shaw asked. "I think I pictured something with more tools and workbenches, or maybe a lab."</p><p>"I'd never been in this place before the other day, so I'm not sure what it used to look like. Some of the places we have are only meant as temporary refuges for people on the run."</p><p>John was eyeing the pillar-trees as if he expected them to come to life. "From the bureau, you mean. How are you so sure they didn't know about these places? It'd only take one person to spill the beans."</p><p>"Well, for one thing, the bureau hasn't descended on any of the crafter hideouts that I'm aware of, and also it's foolish of you to assume that we never thought of that possibility and don't have contingencies in place." Root didn't even like most of the other crafters, but John was an outsider so he didn't get to criticize.</p><p>"Crafters <em>are</em> really paranoid," Shaw pointed out. She raised her chin to point ahead. "Is that where we're headed?"</p><p>The grove of trees surrounding the clearing was visible ahead and there was a green light glowing in it inside Root's head again. Sneezy must still be around. Root had assumed that they'd know as soon as someone entered the hideout, but it was still a little irking to see them sitting there waiting as if they'd known they were getting company.</p><p>"You brought the others," Sneezy said, rising from the patch of grass they'd been seated on. There were strange plants growing up from the ground in a circle around where they'd been sitting. "Good. All of you should see this."</p><p>"What exactly are we here to see?" Shaw asked.</p><p>"We...I am pleased to have you here, Sameen Shaw, and you as well, John Reese."</p><p>Shaw looked taken aback at the greeting. "Yeah, uh, nice...creepy subway forest you have here."</p><p>Sneezy turned to Root and blinked at her a few times, which was their way of reading her energy according to Her. "Are you doing that intentionally?" they asked.</p><p>"Doing what?" Root looked down at herself, but nothing seemed out of place.</p><p>Sneezy turned away without answering. "Follow me, all three of you. I promise no harm will befall you by my doing or intent while you are with me now."</p><p>There were holes in the phrasing that could have been exploited, but Root wasn't too worried about Sneezy at the moment. It was remotely possible that they were faking the whole falling out with the rest of the fae thing, but her instinct (and Hers) told her this was legitimate. She walked after Sneezy as they left the clearing and the other two followed after.</p><p>"How did you find your way into this place?" Root asked as she caught up with Sneezy.</p><p>"The places between your world and ours are ones we can go to freely. The ward the humans set was no real barrier to one from faerie."</p><p>That was way more concerning than the bureau finding out about where the crafters were staying. It meant the fae could walk right into any crafter sanctuary that was between this plane and the fae's whenever they wanted which was at least two that she could think of besides this one. Root knew that she should probably warn the others, though she felt less inclined to than she might have been before. Her loyalties lay elsewhere now.</p><p>"Here." Sneezy stopped next to an opening in the...wall. It must have been the wall of the subway tracks, but here it looked like a mottled stone and dirt structure stretching up into the darkness. In front of them was an opening like a cave mouth.</p><p>"After you," Shaw said, motioning for the fae to go in first. "After all, trapping us technically isn't doing us harm, right?"</p><p>Sneezy blinked rapidly at her, and Root noticed that in this darker area their weird eyes reflected light the way a cat's eyes would. They were conveying something similar to exasperation according to Her.</p><p>"I do not intend to do anything untoward or objectionable to any of you," they said. "Inside is a portal that will take us to a different layer of the in-between worlds. It is safe there as long as we will only stay briefly. There is something you need to see with your own eyes."</p><p>"Another fucking portal? Just great." Shaw sounded disgusted which Root thought was unfair since Shaw had dealt with significantly fewer portals than she had recently.</p><p>Sneezy must have seen they weren't budging because they walked into the cave without another word. Root waited to see if her god had any input, but other than verifying that there was a portal open in the cave, She couldn't see much. She had to stoop to enter the cave and the smell of damp and mildew hit her nose almost immediately. There was water dripping down the odd stone walls. The cave was a short tunnel that let out into a small room where Sneezy was waiting for them next to what was definitely a portal. Root couldn't see much through the swirling darkness in the portal, but she thought maybe there were trees wherever it was.</p><p>"We will be safe as long as we do not stay long," Sneezy said once they were all crammed into the small room. "The portal will take us to a...deeper layer of the in-between world, one closer to faerie, but not in faerie. You will understand when you see." They stepped into the dark fog of that portal and vanished. Root hesitated only a second before following after them.</p><p>There was the now-familiar disorientation that came from travelling through portals accompanied by that odd tug she'd felt earlier, stronger this time. She didn't have any time to think about it because she found herself standing in a new world, one which hurt to look at. She'd been to faerie before and this world didn't look quite as horrible as that, but it was similar: all the colors were more vibrant to the point of being painful to process and everything looked slightly off from what she was used to. Rocks on the ground appeared to be soft and sponge-like and the trees grew oddly, branches jutting out sideways in one direction and forming large circles. It was like someone had taken the properties of Earth, put them in a bag and shaken it up, and pulled out random combinations of objects and traits to create new things.</p><p>But there was something else. A short distance in front of her the weird trees looked blackened and bent in a way that stood out from the rest of the world. The ruined part of the forest stretched out for as far as she could see and everything was unnaturally silent. She could feel something from the destruction, a faint trace of that same malevolence she'd felt from the warlock she'd fought. The damage was most likely actually done in faerie and only partially mirrored to this world which meant--</p><p>"Warlocks attacked faerie?" She made it a question even though she already knew the answer.</p><p>"Yes." Sneezy gazed at the ruined forest, their back to her. "Several of them."</p><p>"Why isn't faerie at war with Earth right now then?" Shaw asked.</p><p>"There is something the fae value higher than they value retribution for this attack." Sneezy turned to look, not at Root, but at Shaw, their strange eyes unblinking for once. "They wish to control the power of the builders. To that end they have forged an alliance with some of your kind and the shadow they serve in the hopes of gaining access to this power and ultimately taking it for themselves."</p><p>"I don't even have the damned artifact," Shaw protested and Root could hear the pent up annoyance in her voice.</p><p>"No, but the humans who do have it are connected to the ones who made this alliance. The ones who command your warlocks wish to conquer the other worlds. They seek to drive fear of the casualties that would be incurred by a war to encourage alliances which I believe they will later betray."</p><p>"Decima," John said quietly from behind her. Shaw nodded in agreement.</p><p>"They're not testing the warlocks' strengths against unnaturals," Root said, comprehension dawning. "They're giving demonstrations of force."</p><p>"This alliance will lead to the ruin of faerie," Sneezy said. "I did not wish to stand by while that happened. I thought perhaps if I warned the only human who has ever been able to use the builders' powers that it might help save faerie."</p><p>"Why not just kill me?" Shaw asked. Root tensed up, almost reaching for her powers to attack at the slightest hint of aggression from Sneezy.</p><p>"That did occur to me, of course. You are well-protected by several forces, but I could perhaps kill you before they could intervene even if I died soon after." Sneezy glanced at Root as if they knew she was ready to fight. "However, I owe you a favor and am unable to kill or harm you while that remains between us. As are all the fae, bound by my promise."</p><p>"That's lucky," Shaw muttered dryly.</p><p>"Indeed." Sneezy looked back at the forest again. "We should return now."</p><p>The trip back through the portal made Root stumble and almost fall. Maybe they should call it a day after this so she could sleep some more because at the moment she felt like she was a liability. The darkness of the cave they were in made her want to curl up on the floor and sleep for about a year. Shaw had caught her arm when she stumbled and had a slight frown on her face now as she looked at her, but she kept silent, possibly not wanting to give away any weakness they might have in front of Sneezy.</p><p>Root didn't trip again on the way back to the clearing, but her head spun and she wondered if anyone would think it odd if she sat down for just a second to recover. Surely that would be okay, right?</p><p>Shaw was saying something to Sneezy about warlocks and alliances and it sounded important, but she couldn't focus enough to comprehend the words. She felt that strange tug again and grey spots swam in her vision. The last thing she was aware of before she lost consciousness was Sneezy, looking at her with their strange eyes.</p><p>"I was wondering when that would happen," they said.</p><p>Root passed out.</p><hr/><p>Shaw had only a moment's warning before Root folded up and collapsed, but she managed to get her arm out in time, partly colliding with Reese who'd also jumped to catch Root. He backed up once she had a hold on Root and turned his body to place himself between them and Sneezy while Shaw lowered Root to the ground.</p><p>She felt for Root's pulse at her wrist and frowned when she found it slow and irregular. This wasn't normal exhaustion; there was something deeply wrong here. She turned back to find Sneezy watching them calmly from nearby.</p><p>"Did you do this?" The whole not being able to harm them thing had sounded too good to be true.</p><p>"Not at all. She was being drained of energy before she even arrived here--perhaps for an entire day at this point judging by her state. I thought it a curious thing to allow, but who can say why warlocks do what they do."</p><p>"You could have mentioned it."</p><p>"It is none of my business."</p><p>Shaw remembered back in the woods after they'd made the deal with Sneezy, how they'd lacked any interest in helping Root. Sneezy had been much more pleasant to deal with than the other fae Shaw had met, but they were still very much fae and therefore untrustworthy.</p><p>"Do you know what's doing this?" she asked. "Actually nevermind that. Do you know how to stop it?"</p><p>"Yes." Something about the way they said it made Shaw know what the answer to her next question would be.</p><p>"You're not going to though, are you? Why not?"</p><p>Sneezy blinked slowly at her. "I may be in disagreement with faerie, but I am still fae. I believe I can return there eventually, but if I were to aid a warlock…." They tilted their head. "Giving you a warning is one thing, but saving her life is another."</p><p>"Even though faerie is considering an alliance with Greer and his merry band of pet warlocks? Seems hypocritical."</p><p>Sneezy remained silent and she could tell they weren't going to budge. She still had Root's wrist in her hand and Root's skin felt ice cold against hers. She struggled out of her coat and draped it over Root. The whole situation had left her at a loss. Root's god was supposed to protect her so why hadn't she? Had she caused this somehow? That didn't make sense. It didn't matter yet, though, not while Root was dying on the ground in front of her. There was one last card she could play here.</p><p>"You owe me a favor."</p><p>Sneezy was silent for several seconds. "I do."</p><p>"I'm calling it in. Help her. Now."</p><p>"That favor keeps you safe from the fae. We will not harm you while it is unresolved. You understand this?"</p><p>"I understand perfectly. Now help her." She could take one isolated fae in a fight if Sneezy attacked them after. And the rest of them? That was a problem for later. It wasn't like she wasn't already in danger, what was one more problem at this point?</p><p>"Very well." Sneezy walked towards them and Reese moved to let them past though he hovered behind them menacingly. Sneezy crouched down next to Root and...there was something off about the way their legs folded, almost like the knees had bent in the wrong direction even though Shaw could clearly see that wasn't the case. She wondered again what their true form looked like.</p><p>Shaw's eyes narrowed when Sneezy pulled the extra coat over Root aside and pulled the zipper on Root's coat down a few inches. She thought about stopping them, but held herself back as they placed a hand on Root's chest, directly at the base of her neck. Their fingers were strange and elongated and the number of joints seemed to change every time she counted them.</p><p>"It is not powerful, whatever did this, and instead it is very good at hiding itself. A parasite, I think you'd call it," Sneezy explained. Their eyes glowed softly in the dim light. "I think her patron may not have been able to sense this attack without actual proximity to her."</p><p>That was a relief. If Root's god had really been trying to kill her Shaw had no idea if there was a way to protect her from that.</p><p>"I have severed the connection." Sneezy stood up. "She will live as long as she is allowed to regain her strength. I do not think you have much to worry about in that regard as her patron has stepped in to assist."</p><p>Shaw could see the color returning to Root's cheeks already. She tugged her coat back over Root and stood up to face Sneezy. They looked even smaller now stuck between her and Reese, but she didn't think for a second that the two of them had the upper hand.</p><p>"Are you going to try and kill me now?"</p><p>Sneezy regarded her silently and then shook their head, the most human gesture she'd seen from them. "No, you are safe from me for now at least."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"The reason I granted you the favor, you helped avenge my--" It was that word again that they'd used to describe the other fae, Grumpy last time. To the best of Shaw's very limited knowledge, it had meant something like a partner the way she and Reese were partners but also something else that humans didn't have a word for. (She'd asked Root to teach her some of the fae language, but it had turned out that all Root knew were a couple very hostile swear words and rude phrases in a lesser fae dialect).</p><p>"You have called in that favor to protect someone I believe is important to you in a similar way, even if the terms are not interchangeable."</p><p>Shaw felt a twist of discomfort in her stomach and looked away into the woods, surrounding them. In the distance she heard the roar of a passing train, a reminder of the real world above them with all its messy assumptions and complications.</p><p>"I think in our terms the word partner isn't correct by itself," Reese chimed in, startling her attention back to the clearing. "Maybe it's closer to a combination of partner and family."</p><p>Shaw wasn't sure if that was better. "You're not going to attack us because you can empathize with us?" she asked, hoping to move on from the point. "No wonder you got kicked out of faerie."</p><p>"I have come to understand your kind better than many of the others of my kind have," Sneezy said, "but you have never understood us. Humans see us as tricksters and liars when they do not understand that among our people to accept a bargain that was not clearly defined would be seen as impolite and proof that the other was not taking us seriously. When agreements among us favor one over the other it is often deliberate and a form of conversation--an interaction of its own. We place extreme importance on such bargains because they are vital to our understanding of each other."</p><p>"So all the tricks and stealing people away are what? A translation issue?" She could appreciate cultural differences and translation problems, but this sounded like bullshit on some level. "Humans are at a disadvantage here and you're telling me that faerie doesn't take advantage of that?"</p><p>"That is complicated. Your lack of understanding and your lack of attempting to understand make many believe you do not deserve the respect we have for each other. I might have once agreed with that, but I've come to believe that it is not as simple a matter as many believe. I think, perhaps, we do not seek to understand humans enough as well." They ducked out from between her and Reese and moved back to the other side of the clearing. She let them go unchallenged, not seeing a reason to keep them trapped anymore.</p><p>"A lot of humans aren't good at seeing things from outside the limits of their own experiences," Reese said. "We tend to believe our experiences are universal, even among ourselves."</p><p>"Yes," Sneezy agreed. "You are better than most, John Reese, which is why you are well thought of among many outside of your own species."</p><p>Well, that was the mystery of Reese's weird charisma with unnaturals solved. He had some type of empathy that made sense to creatures from other worlds that sometimes enjoyed a good dismemberment.</p><p>"I will not stay here any longer," Sneezy said. "You, however, are free to wait here until she is well enough to move. You will not be disturbed."</p><p>Shaw hadn't fancied carrying Root through the subway so that was good news.</p><p>"Where will you go now?" Reese asked.</p><p>"Back through the portal to begin with, and I will close it behind me. Then I will find somewhere else to rest." They looked down at Shaw with their strange eyes. "Consider this my final warning to you. The power of the builders is best left dead and forgotten. Bringing it back will only put you in more danger."</p><p>The spot on the back of Shaw's hand burned with cold fire for a second. Her fingers itched to get ahold of the artifact, but if anything that was proof that Sneezy might be right. "I'll keep that in mind."</p><p>"Yes." Sneezy turned back to Reese. "I hope that we meet again, John Reese, though I think it is unlikely."</p><p>"We'll keep an eye out for you in the future," Reese promised.</p><p>Sneezy turned away without any further words and faded into the background of the clearing. Shaw watched until they'd completely vanished before turning back to examine Root. She looked much better than she had moments before and her pulse was strong and steady when Shaw felt for it.</p><p>"There was a black crystal we fed some of our energy into to open the portal to the elemental plane yesterday," Reese said. "It kind of latched onto us, and it wasn't easy pulling back. She must not have broken its connection to her as cleanly as she thought."</p><p>"That was a really dumb thing both of you did." She let go of Root's wrist and tucked her arm back under the coat blanket. "Though I guess I should say thanks for that."</p><p>Reese nodded but didn't respond. Shaw had always appreciated the simplicity of his style of communication and especially did right now.</p><p>"There's a thing that happened that I haven't told either of you about yet," she said as she settled into a more comfortable position sitting next to Root. "Figured it might be your business so I wanted to tell you first."</p><p>"You ran into something that was my business while dealing with a fire elemental?"</p><p>"No, after. I was waiting for Root to show up at this diner in the middle of nowhere and some woman I'd never seen before showed up and made a bunch of cryptic threats and then left. Think she might be involved with Decima, but she also mentioned you by name."</p><p>Reese looked perplexed. "I can't think who that might be offhand. What did she look like?"</p><p>"Held herself like a soldier. Definitely had military training of some sort. Got a bit of a sadistic vibe off of her. And, uh, brown hair." Her actual physical description hadn't seemed important enough to note next to the other things.</p><p>Reese frowned, looking more troubled than Shaw had seen him in a long time. "That's...the person that sounds like is dead."</p><p>"Oh, your former partner who died?" Shaw didn't know much about the woman Reese had been partnered with before her other than that she'd left Reese kind of messed up and then died under mysterious circumstances that Reese had always suspected the bureau had a hand in.</p><p>"Kara Stanton. She's dead though, so it must be someone else."</p><p>"How sure are you that she's dead?"</p><p>Reese fell silent, perhaps thinking back. "Is she a warlock?"</p><p>"No, don't think so. I wouldn't have waited to mention this if she had been." There was that heavy feeling she'd gotten of weight pressing down on her when she'd seen warlocks before and this woman hadn't had that.</p><p>"I think…" Reese looked back into the subway forest towards the way they'd come in as if he was ready to take off. "There's some people I need to talk to and some loose ends I never tied up."</p><p>"Can it wait until I can give you backup?" It wasn't like she could leave Root unconscious here.</p><p>"I shouldn't be in any danger. I'm not going to try to find her. I'd...rather go look now if you don't need me here."</p><p>"Possibly stupid of me, but I actually trust what Sneezy said about us being safe here and there's not much we can do other than wait for her to wake up. Go deal with this."</p><p>Reese still hesitated and Shaw added, "I can always summon Grim if I need to."</p><p>That satisfied him. "I'll call you as soon as I find something out."</p><p>"Yeah, and we need to make a plan tomorrow for breaking into the bureau."</p><p>"You're still going after the artifact?"</p><p>"No matter what we decide to do with it, it shouldn't be left in the bureau's hands." She'd used to think that the bureau was a safe place for artifacts, but whatever faction Denton Weeks led within it couldn't be trusted.</p><p>"Agreed. I'll see you tomorrow then."</p><p>She watched him walk away until he was lost from sight in the dark subway and then looked back down at her unconscious companion. The amount of times she'd had to patch Root up or seen her too hurt to move was disturbingly high. She'd kind of admitted to herself that <em>maybe</em> part of why she liked having Root around beyond the great sex was because it was easier to make sure she wasn't running off and getting herself almost killed again, but Shaw had been gone only a few hours and here was Root recovering from another near-death experience.</p><p>She banished that train of thought from her mind since she couldn't do anything about it at the moment and leaned back against a tree to wait. There were other things to spend her time chewing over, like the question of the builders' artifact. She'd thought she'd had a solid foundation for the reasons they should use it to free any unnaturals from original artifacts--freeing imprisoned beings that were being used against their will was hard to argue with in terms of morality--but now there was this question of whether using the artifact at all was acceptable in terms of the repercussions it could have. This was the sort of moral quandary she'd joined the bureau to avoid--let someone else figure out the ugly math of necessity versus morality--but without the bureau she didn't know where else to turn for that guidance. Definitely not Root. She valued Reese's opinions on stuff like that, but he wasn't a perfect candidate for making that sort of call either. Maybe there wasn't anyone qualified to make that call.</p><p>Root stirred on the ground, blinking slowly as she regained consciousness.</p><p>"You spend a lot of time almost dying," Shaw said conversationally. "Could you maybe take a week off from that?"</p><p>Root struggled to sit up, but weakly flopped back down. "What happened?"</p><p>"Between what Sneezy and Reese said it sounds like a parasitic crystal tried to suck out your soul."</p><p>Root groaned. "I hate using that thing."</p><p>"Yeah, well, maybe don't in the future then?"</p><p>"I'm not throwing away any potential asset even if it's a bit dangerous."</p><p>"A bit dan...Root, it almost killed you."</p><p>"Sometimes risks are necessary."</p><p>"That's--" Shaw shut her eyes and counted to ten. Root had barely woken up. There'd be time to scold her later since that was now a thing Shaw seemed to do. Maybe this could wait. "How are you feeling? Any signs of that thing still causing trouble?"</p><p>"No, I feel good actually." She tried to sit up again and failed. "In theory anyway. My arms don't seem to be listening to me."</p><p>"There's no rush. Sneezy said we're safe here for now. They left after--"</p><p>"She filled me in already, including the part about you using your favor to make Sneezy help me."</p><p>There was no way Root wouldn't have found out about that eventually, but Shaw still wished she hadn't. "It was the only option under the circumstances."</p><p>"You shouldn't have--"</p><p>"Then you shouldn't have gotten yourself almost killed."</p><p>Root was quiet for a few exceedingly awkward seconds. "Thank you," she said, softly.</p><p>"It wasn't a big deal."</p><p>Root's third attempt to sit up was successful and she shuffled back to lean against the tree next to Shaw, still under Shaw's coat. "I think I'll be able to walk in a few minutes."</p><p>"Take your time. We're not doing anything else until tomorrow." Though she'd lost track of the time down here. Did it even pass the same in this place?</p><p>"Yes, but I'd rather recover somewhere more comfortable, and maybe eat something."</p><p>"We can catch a cab back as soon as you're up for walking out of the subway."</p><p>"Another minute maybe."</p><p>They sat in silence, both looking out into the strange subway forest around them. There were odd calls in the distance at times, almost like birds. They'd been happening since they'd gotten here, but Shaw hadn't stopped to think about them until now. Were there actually birds down here? Was it the sounds of the subway train brakes altered enough in this world to sound alive?</p><p>"Is this area like the weird place the city tried to trap me in?" Shaw asked.</p><p>"Yes, though I think that one isn't in-between two planes. Most of these places, the in-between worlds, are like almost infinite slices layered between two planes. The closer each slice is to a plane, the more it mirrors it. But the place the city sent you, I think it might be...further inside the city itself rather than in-between anything. I'm not sure if humans can get there on their own."</p><p>"You got there to help me in the park."</p><p>"Only because She helped me and we had you as a known point of reference."</p><p>"But you couldn't find me in California."</p><p>"Too far. Physical proximity helps and being at a similar point on our plane to where you were in whatever place the city took you to was closer than both being on the same plane on opposite sides of the country."</p><p>"That...almost makes sense, except how it doesn't at all."</p><p>"It has to do with how energy carries between planes. For example, in this in-between world you can still see hints of our world even if it looks different. For living things it's slightly different, but--"</p><p>Shaw let Root's extremely nerdy explanations of energy transference between planes of existence take her mind off of her growing list of problems. When Root was running around getting her dumb ass almost killed every five minutes it was easy to forget just how much knowledge of unnaturals and planes and artifacts she had crammed in her head, and while some of the explanations were so excruciatingly overly-detailed that Shaw's brain tried to switch off in self-defense, the majority of it was interesting. Root could take things that seemed like inexplicable magic on the surface and put them into a context where they had rules and cause and effect and could be quantified in ways that actually made sense to Shaw. And throughout all of that, Root's voice still held a kind of wistful wonder at the things she was describing.</p><p>"--and the attachment you have to your plane of origin acts as an anchor, which is also why beings will lose power as they travel between planes." Root paused for breath and Shaw's brain latched onto one very specific part of the lecture.</p><p>"If a being travelling from their home plane to another plane always retains some kind of link to where they came from, does that mean that link could be traced back to find their plane of origin?"</p><p>"Theoretically, though I'm not sure why you'd want to. Usually it's easy to tell."</p><p>"What if you were trying to find a plane that had been closed off and you had a single captive of a species from that world? Could you use them to find their world of origin?"</p><p>"Oh." Root sounded stunned and a glance at her showed she looked that way as well. "I wonder if the bureau has thought of that."</p><p>"Even if they haven't, I wouldn't bet on this shadow demon that Greer is working with not thinking it up." Yet another reason that builders' artifact was so dangerous. "We should head back if you feel up to it."</p><p>Root looked troubled but nodded and climbed to her feet. She moved shakily, but didn't need help walking on her own so Shaw deemed her ready to try and get out of there.</p><p>The walk back was quiet (other than for the occasional shadowy train they had to avoid), each of them lost in their own thoughts. Root did alright up until they were back in their world and climbing up the last set of steps to the street. She was walking so slowly that Shaw had to will herself to patience to prevent herself from tossing Root over her shoulder and carrying her up. She passed the time by glaring at anyone else who got impatient with them blocking half the stairwell. <em>She</em> was allowed to be annoyed at Root, but no one else was.</p><p>Much to her surprise, Root didn't fall asleep on the ride back. She still seemed worn out, but no longer on the verge of keeling over. Shaw fidgeted with the doppelganger ring on her finger during the ride, watching the way the passing lights from outside hit the little crystals on it. The ring had been Root's way of trying to keep her safe when Root wasn't around to snatch her back from whatever alternate dimension the city tried to imprison her in, and it bothered her that she didn't have something similar to force Root to take. Root's god did protect her from a lot, but she also lacked the ability to physically grab Root by the scruff of her neck and haul her back out of danger. No, that was something Shaw was going to have to do herself, which meant….</p><p>What it meant was that when they got back to the apartment and Shaw ordered Root to get some more rest, the bed that she herded Root into was hers and not the air mattress on the floor. Air mattresses were a temporary sleeping situation and this had stopped feeling like a temporary situation. She waited until she was sure Root was asleep before she left to go get them both some dinner.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Bureau Break-In</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Breaking into the Manhattan headquarters of the Unnatural Affairs and Relations Bureau should have been the sort of scheme that Shaw had plotted out for fun in her spare time and had loads of blueprints and diagrams for, so Root was shocked when Shaw's plan consisted of turning to look right at her and saying, "Oh, Root has the break-in part covered."</p><p>Of course Shaw was <em>correct</em>, but it was still unfair to deprive Root of both getting to see Shaw's nerdy diagrams and getting to casually reveal her knowledge at the most dramatic moment possible. Root was secretly bitter about that for the entire day (taking a brief break from pouting to enjoy some post-planning sex) and still slightly put out late that night when they left to carry out her plan.</p><p>"Just how many of these places do the crafters have anyway?" Shaw asked as she followed Root across an empty subway platform. At this time of night, a local stop subway station that wasn't in a high traffic area to start with was mostly abandoned. There was one man passed out on the wooden bench on the other platform and that was it.</p><p>"Enough that we can go to ground anywhere in the city if necessary." The hideouts had originally been made for avoiding the bureau or disgruntled unnaturals or landlords, but over time some of them had grown into facilities with workshops and bunks. And then some of them had been made for very different purposes.</p><p>"You'd think the bureau had ways of checking for this sort of thing," Shaw said as they reached the far corner of the platform. "In fact, I know they have ways of checking for all sorts of shady stuff surrounding artifacts. You can't even open a portal in that place."</p><p>"This has nothing to do with artifacts and while portals can't be opened into the bureau, the one we'll be using was locked into place ages ago and is just hidden from view the way the one in the subway is. The bureau can only prevent new ones from being opened," Root said.</p><p>She found the graffitied gear mark on the dirty tiled wall and pressed her palm to it. The ring on her finger didn't glow or do anything magical, but without it the passage wouldn't reveal itself to anyone. She thought she might actually be able to reproduce the correct energy signals needed to activate the mark without a ring, but she hadn't had time to look into it yet and tonight wasn't the night for experiments.</p><p>"We only make use of the existing space between planes. We don't create anything that didn't exist already so there's nothing for the bureau to detect. The only thing we provide are access points." They did often set up things within the hideouts, and the main workshop had some interesting spatial features to it that had been added later, but for the most part what they did was little different from adding furniture to an existing building. In fact sometimes adding furniture was all they did.</p><p>The wall under Root's hand rippled and changed to form a large stone passageway leading into darkness. She pulled a flashlight out of her pocket and clicked it on before entering.</p><p>"That means there's an access point inside the bureau though. Why isn't that detected?" Shaw asked from behind her.</p><p>"The mark doesn't give off any energy itself. The ring needed to activate it does but it's such an infinitesimally small amount that it could be overlooked as a fluctuation in the equipment the bureau uses to monitor energy readings, especially given how many artifacts there are in the building."</p><p>Root hadn't asked Shaw how she'd known about the passage into the bureau because there'd been a very obvious answer to the question. A few years ago, Root had...dropped by the bureau while Shaw was there working late on some paperwork she'd been assigned as punishment for something trivial. Shaw had not ended up finishing the paperwork, but they'd both had quite an enjoyable evening before Root had mysteriously vanished without a trace. It hadn't occurred to her that Shaw might figure out her trick, but it should have. Shaw was far too clever not to have put the pieces together.</p><p>"How many crafters know about this place?" Shaw asked as the entrance to the passage shut behind them. There was a faint light in the tunnel that didn't seem to come from anywhere, but it was dim enough that their flashlights made a big difference.</p><p>"Not many." It was likely she was the only one left alive who did. "We've never been great about sharing. Too competitive. The hideouts and such are about as cooperative as we get." It felt odd to still use 'we' when she didn't consider herself a crafter anymore. Or rather, she wasn't an active crafter, but she was still the greatest crafter in history and that was the important part.</p><p>"The bureau used to swear there were new infused artifacts on the market that had to have been made from original artifacts they had locked away," Shaw said. "Drove them nuts."</p><p>"Mostly false, I'm afraid. Usually that would mean there was a similar artifact they didn't have. Making an infused artifact takes a lot of time and concentration and tools so it's not like something that could be done in one night while staying hidden inside bureau headquarters." Root paused for the dramatic effect she'd been denied earlier. "Well, it's not something <em>most</em> people could do anyway."</p><p>"But you did, right?" Root could hear the eye roll in Shaw's words. "Hope whatever you made was worth the risk."</p><p>Root fell silent at that. The evening after the first time the Fairfield warlock had killed someone, she'd dropped by to see if Shaw had gotten any intel on it that she could share only to find that Shaw was shipping out to the area the warlock was in. She hadn't had access to any good fire protection artifacts, but she'd studied the majority of artifacts in the bureau before and knew of one original artifact they had that, among other things, could prevent smoke from entering the lungs. It was an original artifact, one which no infused artifacts had been made from that she knew of which meant she had to figure out how it worked, what materials it responded to, and how to siphon off power from it in one, very long night spent crammed in a storage room in the basement of the bureau.</p><p>She'd made three infused artifacts that night, all the same type. Two of them Shaw and Reese still had (she'd been pleased to see Shaw wearing hers when she'd gone to California to find her), and the third was probably in the bureau again now since she hadn't been wearing it anymore when she'd woken up in a bureau cell after Fairfield. It was ironic how quickly both herself and the artifact had ended up back in the bureau, but if she hadn't made the infused artifacts and brought them to Shaw and John in Fairfield, would they have survived all the smoke? Would Shaw have survived her trip to the fire elemental?</p><p>"It was worth it," she said and left it at that.</p><p>The passage they were following tilted upwards and turned into a set of shallow stone stairs.</p><p>Shaw stopped next to her at the foot of the stairs. "Does this mean we're getting close?"</p><p>"Another ten minutes, I think."</p><p>"The subway station was a lot further from the bureau than the distance we walked."</p><p>"Space here doesn't work that way. You can fold it back on itself to create shortcuts if you know what you're doing."</p><p>This time she got to see Shaw roll her eyes. "Sometimes I think you just make up shit to sound clever since you know there's no way anyone can disprove it."</p><p>"Honestly, Shaw, while I'd love to give you a full lecture on the intricacies of the fabric of spacetime and how they interact with dimensional planes, we have other priorities."</p><p>"Uh-huh. Right. So why did those supremely knowledgeable in the intricacies of the fabric of spacetime decide to put stairs in here instead of a ramp? Or couldn't they have just bent space to make everything downhill?" Shaw sighed and started up the stairs without waiting for an answer leaving Root to watch her climb from behind, something which only increased her desire to take a short...break. Shaw talking about the laws of space in dimensional planes was extremely distracting even if she had no clue how it all worked.</p><p>At the top of the seemingly endless flight of stairs was a much shorter hall which dead-ended into an empty stone wall. There were no markings on this wall, but there didn't have to be since it was fairly obvious it was the only way out.</p><p>"Anything you wouldn't want the bureau to get their hands on while we're in there should be left here," Root said as she pulled off her coat. "Even if we have to leave through a different route, we can come pick stuff up later."</p><p>Shaw took her coat off as well, but kept the gun tucked in the back of her pants. As far as Root knew, she hadn't brought any artifacts which meant that gun was the only protection she had. Root had settled on just a taser since being a warlock was significantly better than having a gun but it wouldn't hurt to have a way to do things quietly and without her powers.</p><p>"Probably for the best we didn't bring Reese," Shaw said as they stashed their coats in a corner. "He hates small spaces."</p><p>There'd been a heated discussion about who got to go on this little trip (though for John, heated meant he'd mumbled louder, grimaced more, and then sulked). They'd all agreed that a team of two made sense in terms of being sneaky, but John hadn't liked how that disqualified him. Shaw was the one who knew how to find the builders artifact, and Root was a warlock which made her more useful in practically every way to a normal human, something John had scowled about a lot when she'd pointed it out. In the end he'd conceded the point and had set off to try and track down another lead on the mysterious woman Shaw had met in the diner (he'd turned up nothing so far, which only added to his sour mood).</p><p>"This will bring us out in a supply closet on the third basement floor," Root said as she stood facing the wall. "At this time of night there shouldn't be anyone around on those floors, just the security cameras." She'd had some creative ways of dealing with the cameras last time, but this time things should be much easier with Her help. "We'll still need to be quiet though."</p><p>Shaw scoffed. "Not a problem. For me, anyway."</p><p>Root only smiled at her and placed her hand on the wall. She was about to walk right into one of the most dangerous places for her to be, but she had Her in her head and Shaw next to her. Despite the risk she couldn't keep down the thrill of anticipation.</p><p>The wall under her hand rippled and a plain wood door appeared. She listened at it for a moment, and then carefully opened it a crack. There was nothing but darkness on the other side until Shaw aimed her flashlight in to show off a bunch of cleaning supplies and boxes in a small room. There was no sign that anyone had been in the room recently based on the dust on everything.</p><p>Root went in first, slipped the ring off her finger, and hid it on a shelf. If things went to plan, they could get it on the way out, but it was definitely not something she wanted the bureau finding on her if they got caught. Here in a supply closet, a plain metal ring with a bit of tarnish on it would probably just get thrown out if found.</p><p>Shaw shut the door behind them and it vanished, fading into the brick of the wall like it had never been there. Root carefully picked her way through the boxes on the floor and over to the door that led out to the hall. Before she'd been a warlock, this part had been risky, but now She could see around them enough to let Root know the hall was clear. Without access to the cameras, She couldn't see much further than the end of the hall, but hopefully they could fix that soon.</p><p>The hallway was also dark, lit only by a few emergency lights near the ceiling that glowed green. This floor was mostly storage and didn't get a lot of foot traffic even during the day so it was probably safe. The floor above them had some offices that weren't assigned to anyone in particular and used mostly by agents who had to fill out paperwork for a few hours (Root had very fond memories of what she and Shaw had gotten up to on the desk in one of them), and the floors below were where the bureau kept some of its dirty secrets. Like the cell she'd been locked in. The floors even lower than that were the artifact vaults, where a good number of original artifacts were stashed.</p><p>While the main bureau headquarters was in DC, this one actually housed more artifacts simply because there were far fewer unnaturals in New York City. Root had used to think that was due to the human population density or the pollution or some other environmental thing that might make it unpleasant, but now she wondered if it was actually due to the city itself. If Manhattan could defend itself, then maybe unnaturals avoided it.</p><p>The one thing this floor was used for was to switch elevators. The main elevator that went all the way to the top of the building only went down to this floor and gave no indication that there even were any floors lower. There was a second elevator around the corner from the first, behind what looked like a normal steel door. The access to both elevators was undoubtedly why the passage they'd taken opened on this floor and Root often wondered if whoever had originally set it up had only been after artifacts or if they had wanted to spy on the bureau as well.</p><p>Before they could get near the elevators though, there was the problem of the cameras to solve. The upper floors were all watched by security cameras, nearly one in every hall, but this floor only had cameras over by the elevators (another reason why it was the perfect spot for the passage, though that made Root wonder again at how old the passage was since there hadn't always been sophisticated camera systems here) which made it easy for Root to get close to the back of a camera from around a corner and reach out with the tiniest thread of power to touch it. Immediately she felt Her flow through her and into the camera on Her way to infect the entire surveillance system in the building. It wasn't all of Her, of course, since She was still on Her own plane, but a sliver of Her consciousness that could operate within a relative distance from Root. With Her infiltrating the cameras they not only wouldn't have to worry about being seen (since She could disrupt or loop the footage), but they should also be able to get a heads-up on any security lurking around. Root looked back at Shaw and motioned for her to follow.</p><p>The main elevator was quite prominent and obvious, but the door the other elevator was behind was dingy and nondescript. Root bypassed both of them and went to a second nondescript door around the corner which was a closet that had a hidden door at the back which led to the emergency stairs down. Fire regulations meant that they wouldn't need to risk the elevator.</p><p>She felt a chill when they passed the floor she'd been kept locked up on--something about the smell of the place--and sped up, descending five flights to the lowest level. She waited until She gave the all clear and then pushed the door open into a dark, empty hallway. The floor wasn't carpeted and her footsteps sounded impossibly loud to her. It was too dark to see much, but the word the hallway called to mind was sterile, like a hospital. The floor she'd been kept on had been similar and it had made her feel like a lab rat in a research facility. If they caught her again that might be exactly what she became.</p><p>Shaw tapped her arm and raised an eyebrow in question. She felt a soft brush of Her presence as well, warm and reassuring. She nodded at Shaw and motioned for her to go ahead--navigating them to the room with the builders' artifact was Shaw's job. The hallways down here were a maze and the artifact locations weren't stored anywhere that she'd been able to find them (on an air-gapped computer was her guess) so the images Shaw had received from the fire elemental were their best bet for finding the artifact.</p><p>Shaw led the way, slowly and cautiously despite the fact She could see that the halls were abandoned. They wove their way through identical halls, winding deeper and deeper into the center of the building. The halls were all lined with metal doors locked with security keypads next to them. Finally, Shaw stopped in front of one of the doors that looked to Root like every other door they'd passed. She nodded at it and Root stepped up to place a hand on the keypad. A slight jolt of power and the door popped open with a clunk. Shaw went through first, gun out but not raised, and Root crept in after her, making sure the door shut silently behind them.</p><p>Shaw's flashlight swept over the room and revealed a small space, empty except for a metal table in the center with a large wooden box on it. It had been a while since Root had seen the builders artifact, but the box looked like it was about the right size to contain it. All this time and it was sitting right here easily within reach. Shaw crossed to the table and stood in front of the box, staring at it with an unnerving intensity. Root joined her, wondering if she should intervene if Shaw tried to touch the artifact here. She wasn't convinced Shaw should touch it at all, but they could have that discussion back in the safety of Shaw's apartment.</p><p>Shaw flipped open the latch on the front of the box and raised the lid.</p><p>They had no warning, just a crack and hiss before a cloud of smoke sprayed out of the box at their faces. Root's head spun and she felt her knees give out. She felt Her desperately trying to clear whatever the drug was from her system, but then her head hit the edge of the table and she collapsed into darkness.</p><hr/><p>Shaw woke up furious, but too groggy to do much about it. She could tell she was lying on her side on a hard, uncomfortable surface and her left arm hurt like she'd fallen on it at a bad angle, but otherwise she didn't seem injured. There was a bright light shining that she could see right through her closed eyelids and she cautiously cracked open one eye to investigate further. From where she was positioned she could tell she was on the floor of a white room with a wall across from her close enough to let her know it wasn't a very big space. There looked like a door further down the wall but she couldn't see it well in her current position.</p><p>She sat up slowly, fighting down a wave of nausea that was left over from whatever they'd been gassed with. Stupid of her not to suspect a trap--the whole thing had been way too easy.</p><p>"Shaw?"</p><p>She turned to see Root sitting further down the wall from her, watching her with relief. Root looked okay other than for a bruise on her temple. She must have hit something when she collapsed.</p><p>"Where the hell are we?" Shaw asked as she shifted to sit with her back to the wall. Her head throbbed painfully.</p><p>"A cell of some sort in the bureau. I'm not sure where exactly."</p><p>"Weird cell," Shaw said as she got a better look at it. The room was fairly small, but still larger than the average cell and painted a blinding white that was made worse by the very bright overhead lights. There was a metal door with no handle on it across from them and nothing that looked like a window anywhere. There was, however, a camera up by the ceiling out of reach.</p><p>"You seen anyone yet?"</p><p>"Not yet." Root's voice sounded funny and Shaw snuck another look at her. She was sitting way too stiffly, knees pulled up to her chest and arms around them, and her fingers were digging into her arms.</p><p>"What's wrong?"</p><p>Root shook her head. "I think it must be this room. I can't feel Her at all."</p><p>"Oh." That explained why she hadn't ripped the door off its hinges. "Uh, they didn't do anything to your tattoo or anything?"</p><p>"No, nothing. I think there's something lining the walls of this room that interferes with our connection."</p><p>That was definitely bad news though it meant they'd likely be unable to move Root out of this room while she was conscious which lowered their options. Whoever they were. Definitely Denton Weeks, but was Greer involved too? She'd have expected Root to be wearing another one of those control cuffs if that were the case.</p><p>The thought of cuffs made her raise her eyes to look at Root's ear. The cuff earring was still in place much to her surprise.</p><p>Root must have seen where she was looking because she smiled bitterly. "They'd have to cut my ear off to get that off and I guess they weren't willing to do that. Yet." Her eyes flicked up to the camera and back to Shaw and Shaw caught her meaning. She'd already figured that they were being watched and listened in on, but it was good to see Root was on the same page. It probably also explained why Shaw hadn't woken up with Root hovering over her like she would have expected. The bureau and Decima both already knew the two of them were involved to some extent, but there was no reason to remind the bad guys of that. That sort of thing could get used against them all too easily.</p><p>Shaw looked up into the camera. "It would be a real shame if whoever they had spying on us didn't already know that Denton Weeks was responsible for the warlock that killed thousands of people in Fairfield." She smirked at the camera.</p><p>That got a startled laugh out of Root and Shaw grinned at her. "Might as well ruin his day, too."</p><p>"I wish I'd thought of that."</p><p>"I have faith in your ability to find some other way to fuck with them," Shaw said as she patted her pockets. Everything she'd had with her had been taken, but fortunately that hadn't been much. The only thing they'd missed was the doppelganger ring on her finger. Odd since it was easily noticeable and obviously an infused artifact. Maybe there was more to it than Root had told her.</p><p>"Guess we get to wait now," Shaw said. She'd been in cells before so she knew how to deal with the boredom. She'd have gone back to sleep if it weren't for how rattled Root looked.</p><p>"Fortunately I've had a lot of experience waiting in cells in this building, though at least the last one had a bed."</p><p>That probably explained some of how tense Root was, too. Whatever had happened to her here last time had definitely been traumatic based on the way she talked about it--or rather how she avoided talking about it--and that plus not being able to contact her god was a bad combo.</p><p>"Wonder if Weeks will have the balls to show up himself," she mused.</p><p>"I think we're about to find out," Root said.</p><p>Shaw heard the approaching steps a second later and frowned. Did Root still have some bit of her powers left? Or were heightened senses a permanent thing for her now? Either way it worked in their favor.</p><p>She heard a door open and then shut and then their door swung open revealing three heavily armed guards crammed in a little space between the door and another door behind them. An airlock-type approach for keeping Root cut off from her powers, she guessed. This room had been well thought-out.</p><p>"You. Come with us." The guard in front pointed at her.</p><p>"Shaw…."</p><p>She heard the edge in Root's voice that said she was about to do something very stupid and she turned to shake her head at her. Not worth it. "It's fine. I've got this."</p><p>Root didn't look convinced and when Shaw stood up she rose as well, but she didn't rush the guards or anything spectacularly dumb like that and instead watched quietly as Shaw joined the guards in the alcove. Her eyes were full of fury though and Shaw almost felt sorry for whichever bureau agent had to deal with her next. Then the inner door shut and Shaw was left in darkness for a long moment before the outer door opened and the guards led her out into the hallway.</p><p>"Hands," one of the guards ordered, holding up a pair of handcuffs.</p><p>Shaw considered seeing what would happen if she ignored him, but there were a lot of guns pointed at her and Root listening in from the other side of the doors no doubt so she simply held her arms out and let the guard cuff her. It wasn't a big deal since she'd worked at the bureau long enough to know how to get out of all their cuffs without breaking a sweat.</p><p>"Where are we headed?" she asked the guards. They looked like typical bureau muscle: armed to the teeth but not particularly bright.</p><p>"Down the hall this way," said the lead guard. "And no talking."</p><p>They took her to the elevator and hit a button for the lowest floor. She had a sneaking suspicion she knew where they were headed, but why would they take her back to the room she'd been captured in? That did prove to be their final destination though, which made her deeply uneasy. The door to the room was open now and standing inside with one hand resting on the wooden box on the table was Denton Weeks.</p><p>"Agent Shaw," he said when she entered. "I have to say, you managed to surprise us. We thought we had another week before you two walked right into our hands."</p><p>"You always were bad at your job, so I guess not much has changed." The peeved look on his face was worth whatever it might cost her later. "Where's your buddy Greer?"</p><p>"Mr. Greer has been attending to matters elsewhere. He planned to be back before the two of you showed up, but maybe this is better." Weeks nodded to himself. "I don't need him for this."</p><p>"Trouble in paradise?" It probably meant senator Garrison was still letting Greer do whatever he wanted over Weeks' objections.</p><p>"Greer is still interested in the warlock, of course, but suddenly he got all interested in you as well. It took some digging, but I found out it had to do with this." He patted the box with his hand. "Whatever this does, it seems you're the only one who knows how to use it and that makes you valuable. For the moment at least."</p><p>Shaw's eyes drifted down to the box and this time she could <em>feel</em> the artifact in it. It was like the tug of a magnet pulling at her. The spot on her hand pulsed with cold. "Seems like I'd be dumb to tell you anything about it if it's all that's keeping me alive."</p><p>Weeks smiled, that slimy smile of his that made Shaw want to break his nose again. She already knew what was coming next because Weeks had access to her file and knew that traditional methods of persuasion wouldn't work on her which meant he'd figured out exactly what would.</p><p>"You see, <em>I</em> don't need the warlock," Weeks said. "That's Greer's thing. With her patron at full strength again she's far too dangerous to ever trust, so my plan was to kill her. But that was before we found out that she's been living with you."</p><p>There'd always been a danger that the bureau might find out where she lived, but she hadn't thought much of it. Weeks had a grudge, sure, but the bureau didn't have any reason to bring her in and that might have caused questions and she might have said the wrong thing to the wrong person. The danger to Root hadn't occurred to her because Root was only supposed to be there for a few days initially and then so much had been happening that she hadn't had time to think about it.</p><p>"Now--" Weeks undid the latch on the box. "--you're going to show me how this works. One false move and there's an entire team waiting to take care of your friend. And I promise you, they won't make it quick."</p><p>Shaw's eyes were locked on the box. She couldn't see what was in it from this side of the table, but there was a faint blue glow rising from it. The spot on the back of her hand was so cold it <em>burned</em>.</p><p>"Maybe we'll start with her other ear, or an eye. Or maybe that new artifact we got last week that seems to cause so much pain that we had one guy kill himself by bashing his head on the floor until he died to escape it. Nasty thing."</p><p>"I'll show you how it works," Shaw said, because right now she had no good choices and getting her hands on the artifact was a huge unknown which made it better than all the very bad known options. "I need to touch it to activate it, though, or it won't work for anyone."</p><p>Weeks looked suspicious.</p><p>"If I try anything, you'll kill her, right? So I'm not going to try anything." There was some truth to that. The question was whether or not Root had a better chance if she could somehow use the artifact to take out Weeks and the three guards or not. Either way was a gamble, only made more difficult by the fact she had no clue how to activate the artifact or what it did beyond what the infused artifact version she'd had made out of it had done.</p><p>Weeks stepped aside and motioned for her to approach. Shaw looked back once at the guards behind her, marking their locations, and then walked around the table to finally get a look at the thing she'd come here for, the reason everyone was after her. The artifact was a glass sphere, half-full of the same blue liquid that her infused artifact had had in it. The stuff that had seeped into her skin. She couldn't tell how Root had gotten to it since the sphere looked unbroken, but she didn't like the way it crawled up the side of the glass towards her as she stepped up closer.</p><p>"What does it do?" Weeks asked from nearby. "No one has been able to get any reaction out of it before."</p><p>"You'll see in a second." And because there was absolutely nothing else she could do, she reached out with both cuffed hands and placed them on the glass sphere. Her fingers went right through the glass like it was made of water, and the blue liquid crept up and over her hands, the same cold burning that had been on the spot on her hand spreading across her hands and up her forearms. She only had a second to be upset about it because the world changed around her, the vault room shifting and reforming into a plain grey space that seemed to stretch infinitely in every direction. She could see a ceiling above her, but no walls at all.</p><p>"What the fuck." She was really sick of shit like this happening. "Anyone else here?"</p><p>There was a noise from behind her and she turned to face what she already knew to be the last builder on Earth.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. The Last Builder</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Root rubbed at the needle mark on her arm as she paced back and forth in the cell. She'd started regaining consciousness before the guards had gotten her into the cell and they'd drugged her with something. The feeling of that needle in her arm combined with the smell of the place had brought back some very unpleasant memories, which now were only serving to heighten the growing fury she felt. But there'd been something else that had happened in those brief moments of consciousness on her way to the cell, something she'd heard.</p><p>She hadn't been awake enough to understand what it meant at the time, but she'd definitely heard one thing very clearly. "The residual power shouldn't be a problem," one of the people moving her had said.</p><p>It hadn't made any sense to her when she'd remembered it upon waking, but she'd also been distracted by making sure Shaw was okay while trying not to give away how worried she was in front of the camera on the ceiling. Now though, with rage simmering in her veins, she was thinking more clearly.</p><p>Residual power.</p><p>She couldn't sense or contact her god at all, but the tattoo on her back still remained, a sign that their connection should be restored the second she got out of this trap. But the tattoo was more than just a symbol--it was the port through which she channeled Her powers, like a socket She could plug into. It didn't produce any power on its own, but it did act as a conduit. And that fact made the word 'residual' suggest a very interesting possibility.</p><p>She could tell it was there as soon as she thought to check, a tiny, almost microscopic amount of Her power left over in her tattoo. Residual power. The man hadn't been worried about it because it was such a small amount that there was very little she could do with it--certainly not take out the door or attack a guard, but maybe there was another approach, a subtler one.</p><p>When the guards had opened the door to take Shaw away, she'd gotten a brief look at the outside of the door. There hadn't been a keyhole on it, only a handle that matched the ones that had been on all the artifact vault doors. Those doors had opened with an electronic keypad that released the lock on the door, a keypad that was unbelievably easy for her to override with Her power. The only problem was that the keypad was on the outside wall in the alcove between the doors, which she was cut off from by whatever it was they'd used to keep her from her god.</p><p>At first she'd thought it must be an artifact, but that hadn't made sense since she was quite certain there was nothing out there that could achieve this sort of effect. More likely this was something similar to whatever technology the bureau used to prevent portals from opening inside the bureau. Something in the walls if she remembered correctly from her time reading through all the bureau files she'd stolen on her way out. It hadn't been exactly clear on what it was, but it had sounded like some type of material that they'd gotten from an unnatural (the fae, perhaps?) and put inside the actual walls of the building. Whatever it was wouldn't have interfered with her connection to her god, but what if someone had taken it one step further? Someone like Greer with his very specific interest in restraining warlocks. Without anything else to go on, it felt like the most likely answer, which meant….</p><p>It meant that unless the walls were made out of the stuff then there would likely be spots in it where the material wasn't present. It probably didn't need to be covering every inch of the space to be effective, and it would be easy to waste what little power she had left searching blindly for a weak spot. However there was one place that she knew with an absolute certainty that the material wouldn't be present.</p><p>The door itself could have the material in it, but there was the tiniest gap between the door and the frame, so small that she could barely see it. It was a risk, but it was the only thing she could try. She ever so carefully sent out the tiniest bit of her remaining power and felt for an opening by the door. She had a panicked moment when she thought she'd miscalculated, but then she felt it, like a draft. It was extremely hard directing the tendril of power without being able to see (she had to rely on her memory of where the keypads had been on the other doors in the hall), but when she found it it was the easiest thing in the world to push at it just so. There was a click and the door swung open a crack. She stepped through it quickly into the alcove and faced the second door. With the camera in the room, they'd already know what she was up to so she had less than no time to work. Shaw needed her help. There wasn't any room for error here.</p><p>She focused on the second door and concentrated, and much to her great surprise she felt a flood of power returning to her. Her god swept back into her and she let out a half-choked sob of relief at the feeling. Being back in a cell here all alone had been just about the worst thing she could imagine and she was so busy basking in Her presence that she scarcely listened to Her explanation of how She'd been searching for a similar weakness on the outer door.</p><p>"Can you see Shaw?" she asked, but her god had lost track of Shaw after she'd left the area.</p><p>"I think I know where they'll take her." She raised her hand at the remaining door.</p><p>The first blast of energy sent the door flying backwards so violently that it embedded itself in the opposite wall. There were armed men waiting in the hall so the second blast of energy pulled the ceilings down on them and then sent the men and the debris hurtling through several layers of walls. For good measure, she sent out one last blast, leaving everything in the hall in smoking ruins. The fire sprinklers went off overhead and one light that had survived intact fizzled on and off.</p><p>She stepped out into the ruins of the hall and got her bearings. She knew this hall, knew it far too well. Without intending to, she turned to look at a door three down from hers, a door which she'd been trapped behind once. She was dimly aware that her god was reminding her that she had important things to do, but there was a ringing in her ears as she raised her hand again. The wall blasted in with a rain of concrete, exposing the inside of the cell for one horrible second before she crushed the entire area into dust. Her breath came out in harsh pants as she looked at the decimated remains of her former cell.</p><p>She wondered if her god had felt this same sense of lightness back when they'd burned down the house She'd been imprisoned next to for so many years. The thought brought her awareness back to her god, who was ever so gently trying to get her attention. The absolute care and compassion she felt from Her nearly broke her, but there was one word that got through above all the others.</p><p>"Shaw." If it weren't for Shaw still being somewhere nearby, she could flatten this entire building and grind the pieces of it to dust. Getting Shaw to safety had to come first though. She turned to look down the ruined hallway. They must have taken her back to the artifact. Everyone wanted Shaw because she could use the builders' artifact and Denton Weeks must have figured that out as well. "Let's go get her back."</p><hr/><p>The monster came out of the grey wall in front of Shaw, so fast she barely had time to register it. She had an impression of a carapace and many arms or maybe tentacles and enormous faceted eyes before the thing was on her, knocking her to the ground. There was weight on top of her and she saw herself reflected in a thousand mirrors and then--</p><p>The weight was gone. She sat up, not sure what she'd be facing, but definitely not expecting what she found. There was a humanoid figure standing a few feet away that looked familiar in a warped and disturbing way. It was like someone had tried to sculpt her from a description without ever having seen her or another human being before. The face proportions were very slightly off which was deeply unnerving and the hair wasn't actually hair and appeared to be a texture on the skin.</p><p>"Okay, can you not look like that?" she asked. "Because it's really fucking weird."</p><p>The figure's form churned and flowed like wet clay reshaping itself and ended up as a neutral grey humanoid devoid of any real features and looking like a department store dummy. "Is this acceptable?" Their voice was surprisingly normal and thankfully not her own.</p><p>"Yeah, much better." Shaw stood up slowly, not taking her eyes off the thing. "I take it you're the builder trapped inside this artifact? Didn't think you'd speak English, but I guess that makes sense if you were on Earth before you got stuck in here."</p><p>"I forgot much of your language which is why I had to borrow it from you. My apologies for scaring you."</p><p>Their voice seemed to be projected from its chest rather than its mouth, which, when combined with the fact that their mouth opened and shut without their lips moving to match its words, was disconcerting. Now that she'd had a moment to process, she wasn't sure if the brief glimpse she'd gotten of the builder right at the start had actually looked insectoid or if her brain had been trying to tie familiar shapes to a truly unknown form.</p><p>"I don't do scared," she said, meeting their solid grey eyes. "What do you mean borrowed? Did you get inside my head?"</p><p>"It was the fastest way to allow us to communicate, and to judge your intentions."</p><p>"I've really fucking had it with unnaturals rummaging in my brain without permission." Shaw rubbed at her temple wondering if she was feeling the start of a headache or just imagining it. "You can talk now, so talk. Is this the inside of the artifact? Did I get teleported in or something?"</p><p>"Only your awareness. I believe your body is where you left it."</p><p>"That means Weeks is going to rip my hands off this thing any second." Or cut them off. He'd probably enjoy that.</p><p>"Time works differently here. I do not think they have noticed yet, though I cannot be certain."</p><p>"Is there anywhere that time <em>does</em> work consistently?" She held up a hand to stop them from answering. "Don't want an actual answer to that one." The builder's head tracked the movement of her arm in an unnerving way. "Look, I have a ton of questions, but right now the important one is can you help me bust out of the building I'm in back in the real world? Anything else can wait."</p><p>"Yes, but you are wrong. Nothing can wait. We must speak now. You will understand why presently." The builder sat down on the ground, legs folding like they were made of rubber. "Humans prefer to sit for long conversations I believe?"</p><p>Several snarky replies about human preferences occurred to Shaw, but she let them go and instead sat down across from the builder. The ground felt smooth, almost like it was made of stone or perhaps plastic. There was no temperature to it, or any temperature at all here. "What now?"</p><p>"Now ask your questions."</p><p>"You're the one who said we have to speak now. Doesn't that mean there's things you need to tell me?"</p><p>"Yes, but I won't know what those things are until you ask."</p><p>Shaw sighed. This builder had evidently gone to the same school for being a cryptic asshole that Root had attended. She wondered which one had scored higher on the 'irritating the fuck out of Sameen Shaw' final exam. "Fine, why did the builders all leave? Wait, no. Why did you make artifacts for humans in the first place?"</p><p>"We were not travellers the way many of the others you call unnaturals were. There was no need for us to look beyond our world when we already had everything we could imagine." The builder put their palm down on the floor in front of them and then raised it up, a thin column of the floor stretching up to follow their hand. The column broke away from the floor and condensed into a sphere that the builder held in their palm. The sphere changed colors--grey to black to blue to green to gold--and expanded and contracted minutely, rhythmically, like a beating heart.</p><p>"Anything we could imagine, we could mold from raw material. Why would we ever need to look elsewhere?" The sphere, now a milky color, froze and shattered to pieces in their hand. The pieces rained down on the floor and, as the builder ran their other hand over the ground, were reabsorbed into it.</p><p>"But perhaps there were things we couldn't imagine within the confines of our world. The idea was controversial, an oddity for our kind, and that should have been enough warning on its own, but the warning went unheeded."</p><p>"Controversy is an oddity for your kind?" Shaw asked. "You're all just super agreeable with each other all the time?"</p><p>"There was no need to disagree."</p><p>"Yeah, well, when we don't have a reason to disagree we often end up inventing one." Shaw studied the ground that the builder had created the sphere from. Her hand itched to try it as well even though there was no logical reason to assume she could do anything.</p><p>"We don't think like you. Our social structure, our needs and desires, our forms of communication, none of these things are like yours. What we did have in common was curiosity and the drive to learn. In our case I think you might call it perfectionism. We strove to know more so we could perfect everything."</p><p>"Bet you learned a lot about disagreements from the rest of us."</p><p>"Yes, we did. There are many stories I could tell you, but only one is important now. We found humans and Earth and decided to take an interest. Humans were at a severe disadvantage at that time, with several other unnaturals greatly out-powering you. Until then, we'd been observing remotely, but there was a decision made to engage with humans."</p><p>The builder paused and looked down at the floor as if they could see something far beneath it. "Humans asked us for a way to defend themselves against the other unnaturals and we agreed because we wished to see what would happen. It was an experiment rather than a real desire to help. You must understand that we did not view what we did the way I have come to understand humans might. Artifacts weren't prisons in our minds, they were another form that living beings could inhabit."</p><p>"A form where they're trapped and can't control their own lives. What did you think prisons were?"</p><p>"We didn't."</p><p>"Bet you've changed your mind now."</p><p>"Indeed. I've had much time to think." The builder's murky grey eyes met hers. "We believed ourselves to be wiser than all the other species we encountered. We had no war, no strife, no crime. We took the presence of these things in other species to mean we were superior when we should have understood that trying to measure species from other worlds by our own standards would be no more accurate than humans judging us by theirs. It was much easier to see the flaws in others than in ourselves."</p><p>Shaw wondered what Sneezy would have made about all this. It sounded similar to what they'd talked about in terms of cultural differences. None of them had made enough of an effort to develop a common tongue. "You made artifacts for humans to allow them to defend themselves from other unnaturals because you wanted to see what would happen when you armed the ants with flamethrowers. Guess that makes sense."</p><p>Someone else might have been mad about that, but Shaw didn't see why she should get bothered by something that had happened ages ago and had worked out pretty well for humanity. "How'd you end up inside an artifact then? Is this the part where you tell me that your curiosity led you to learn all the bad, horrible parts of human nature and one of your lot was a little too good a student?"</p><p>The builder scooped up another handful of the floor and rolled it between their palms. "Why would you assume we learned that from humans?"</p><p>"Well, a lot of us are assholes."</p><p>"If there is one thing I have learned in all this, it's that there are...assholes, as you say, in all species, including my own. But we absorbed so many new things from so many new species that it would be hard to say where the problem started. Or perhaps there was always a problem and we merely learned new methods of acting on it. I'm still not certain what led to me ending up here, though I have several guesses. That's not important though. My kind left after I was imprisoned, correct?"</p><p>"Uh, yeah. You didn't know that?" Just how much could they see from inside the artifact?</p><p>"I had no way of confirming it, but I knew what we would do in these circumstances. Leave and shut the door behind us and never open it again. The endeavor was an experiment and it had failed and done great harm to our society."</p><p>"They could have brought you back with them though? I mean, I'm assuming they can free you from this thing?"</p><p>The builder held up their hand and the material in it twisted to form a shape that was familiar to Shaw: a large, white tree with bare branches. It was the tree that Root's god had been stuck in for years.</p><p>"You unbound an unnatural from an artifact. What happened when you did that?"</p><p>"The artifact shattered and so did the infused artifact I'd used to do it with, and then she went back to her own world through a portal."</p><p>"And what if she'd been one of the fae? What would her freedom have looked like? What would she have done if she'd been tied to a specific physical form that no longer existed?"</p><p>That possibility hadn't crossed Shaw's mind back then which was probably for the best. "If an unnatural needs a physical form to go back to and doesn't have one it'll die? But can't you just--" She waved a hand at the tree. "--make your own form?"</p><p>"We can change and manipulate things that exist. I could make a body that looked like mine had but there would be no way for me to inhabit it. Humans, fae, and demons, among others have the same limitation."</p><p>"What about elementals?" She needed to know if she was going to have a really pissed off fire elemental to deal with soon.</p><p>"An elemental's form is created and maintained by their existence and their connection to the world around them. They would be able to revert to their original form as long as they had access to the element they embodied."</p><p>It was only a tiny bit of (probably) good news, and one she might never be able to act on, but it was still nice to hear that she didn't have to add getting mauled by a bear to her list of problems. "How'd you know about how I freed Ro...uh, the god in the tree? I got the impression you couldn't see much of what was going on out there."</p><p>The builder closed their hand, the tree collapsing back into a formless mass in their palm. "For most of the time I was in here, that was true. The first change happened when something invaded my world and cut away a sliver of my power."</p><p>Root. No need to mention that though.</p><p>"Your kind had developed a method for stripping away tiny bits of power from artifacts to make new, lesser artifacts. Very clever and not something we'd imagined. We're very good at seeing all the components of a thing, but only in terms of how they make up the whole. What you did never would have occurred to us."</p><p>"Could you...I mean was part of your consciousness still in that infused artifact?" Root and her god had said that wasn't the case, but how else has the builder known about the tree?</p><p>"I knew nothing of the part of me that was taken until a part of myself touched your skin."</p><p>"Oh, the blue stuff. What is that anyway?" Had Root given her tentacle-ant-alien blood?</p><p>"It's a part of us, a fluid which gives our body life, but which also carries our thoughts. Inside the artifact it was dormant, but when it came into contact with a living being, I regained awareness of it."</p><p>So <em>sentient</em> tentacle-ant-alien blood. Shaw was going to have to lay down some guidelines for Root about alien body fluids and why they weren't a good gift. "When it touched my hand you could read my thoughts or something?"</p><p>"Nothing so direct. I got glimpses, stray facts, a blurred sense of who you were."</p><p>"Glimpses." Hopefully the glimpses hadn't been when she and Root had been banging because having one unnatural watching that was more than enough already. "Is that why I wanted to find this artifact so badly? I thought it was some sort of lure of the power itself. Like a drug."</p><p>"No, that was me. I wanted you to find your way here. It was the only way I could see to escape this situation."</p><p>"Won't you die if you escape?"</p><p>"Yes, that is my preference."</p><p>Shaw couldn't blame them for that, though it threw a wrench in her plans. She needed the builder's power to get them out of the bureau and then to help with the fire elemental situation. Also there was the matter of all the other artifacts.</p><p>She looked down at the place where the builder had scooped away part of the floor. It was even again now, as if it had never been disturbed in the first place. Would any unnaturals she freed that couldn't exist outside their artifact vanish into nothingness? She knew now the builder preferred to cease existing over remaining imprisoned, but did all the unnaturals?</p><p>"You've had a lot of time now to think about all the shit your kind pulled. Without your help, humans might not have survived, or we'd have been the prey of some unnatural species, but I'm not sure…" She sighed and waved a hand in frustration. "The artifacts give us an edge, but they come at a cost, and I'm not sure if that's one I can measure. I'm not sure if it's one anyone can measure. I need to know--"</p><p>She stopped abruptly as a stinging pain lanced through her head, right behind her forehead. She grunted in pain and pressed her hand to her head until the pain faded away, leaving a dull ache. What the hell was going on outside? When she regained focus, the builder was speaking again.</p><p>"You asked before if we'd learned bad things from humans. We learned so much, none of it necessarily good or bad, and we saw many types of humans. No two humans are identical, but we learned to recognize traits. I can see so much of you from what you've done since we were connected."</p><p>Shaw desperately thought back over what she'd done the last few months but her mind traitorously only brought up images of herself and Root in compromising positions. There'd definitely been a lot of that. "Uhh…"</p><p>"I know why it is you're looking for this artifact. You made a bargain to save the life of a friend and you need the artifact to fulfill that now."</p><p>"Yeah, exactly," Shaw said, relieved that they'd gone with the word 'friend'.</p><p>"And without the artifact you will be at the mercy of the fae and you and your friend will be in danger again."</p><p>"We're already in danger, but yes."</p><p>"Then I will simply ask you, despite all of that, will you free me?"</p><p>It would have been so easy to say no, to refuse and try and find a way to use the power anyway to save herself and Root. She wouldn't have lost sleep over it and it would've made their lives simpler. Without the bureau or the earlier influences from her life she had no one to pawn off her moral dilemma on, and no one to ask for advice. And yet the answer was still quite obvious--maybe it wouldn't have bothered her, but she was absolutely sure that Denton Weeks and John Greer would both leap at the chance to have the builder's power and pay no mind that they'd be using the builder against their will. She didn't want to be them.</p><p>"Yes, I'll help you."</p><p>The builder nodded at her. "Place your palms on the ground."</p><p>"What for?"</p><p>"I'm going to show you how to bend the world to your will."</p><p>"What does that even mean?" Though she had a nasty suspicion.</p><p>"You'll understand."</p><p>Shaw reluctantly placed her hands on the ground. The builder reached forwards and placed their own hands over hers and they felt the same as the smooth floor. She tried to pull back from the contact, but they held her hands down.</p><p>"I'm not really the hand holding type."</p><p>"I've seen you hold someone's hand."</p><p>Just great--the one thing they could have seen that was worse than the sex.</p><p>"What happens now?"</p><p>"Now I will transfer part of my power into you, just enough to allow you to destroy the artifact when you return to your body. At that point, I will die and a good portion of my power will transfer into you in the process. Not all of it though. Our power isn't largely compatible with your species, and no human can be trusted with all of it. Since our power isn't a thing that can be compartmentalized, you will have access to all of our abilities, but I will only show you how to use a small portion."</p><p>Shaw struggled to pull her hands back. "No offense, but I'd rather not be a human artifact."</p><p>"I won't exist the way I do now. It will be more like one of your infused artifacts, and, like them, it won't last forever. A much shorter time I believe."</p><p>"How long?"</p><p>"I'm not familiar with your measurements of time--" Shaw rolled her eyes because she should have expected that after dealing with so many unnaturals mocking their perceptions of time. "--but perhaps eight or nine times longer than it's been since we were first connected."</p><p>That wasn't so bad. Months and not years. Maybe that would be enough to let her free the other unnaturals from their artifacts as well. "Are there going to be side effects? There's always a downside to power."</p><p>"I'm unsure. I think you'll understand what you need to once this is done."</p><p>Shaw thought back to the warnings Sneezy had given them about the builders. "This isn't going to send up a signal flare for the rest of your buddies is it? Not sure we want the builders coming back here, no offense."</p><p>"Nothing is ever certain, but I cannot imagine my kind ever coming here again after what occurred." They locked eyes with her. "Are you ready?"</p><p>"Wait, one more question." She had a million. "Why was I the only one who could use the artifact?"</p><p>The builder's unsettling face split into an even more unsettling smile. "When the power was stripped from me, I tried to impart in it a portion of my own will. Artifacts work by intent and I wished to judge the intent of and who used it. Creation and destruction are two sides of the same coin, and both are equally dangerous, but preservation is a different coin completely."</p><p>"I really hate the cryptic unnatural bullshit, you know."</p><p>"I know."</p><p>Shaw opened her mouth to ask another 'final' question, but a cold burning spread across the back of her hands and she looked down to see them engulfed in blue light. The light spread up her forearms but stopped short at her elbows and then….</p><p>It felt like her arms were torn apart and remade at the same instant and a fraction of a second later icy tendrils rushed through her head and she braced herself for the worst. She looked up to meet the builder's eyes one last time before the blue light spread across her vision and pain so intense she thought she'd pass out flooded her mind.</p><p>The burning in her head was persistent even as she became aware of her surroundings again. The vault, the table, the blue liquid from the sphere on her hands, the handcuffs crumbling to pieces and falling from her wrists, Denton Weeks next to her, and the guards on the other side of the table across from her. She felt the cold glass of the artifact between her fingers and everything seemed so simple now. She could feel the way the builder was woven into the artifact and feel every single element of the glass of the artifact itself and the blue liquid and...everything. Like this, with all the pieces laid out before her, it was child's play to rearrange them. The glass of the crystal broke into pieces the way the sphere in the builder's hands had earlier and the cold burning intensified, a thousand times worse now.</p><p>She doubled over, dizziness and nausea overtaking her. In the background she could hear talking and the sound of the guards moving towards her. Not good. Every inch of her arm burned as she reached out with one hand and touched the table again, reshaping the metal into deadly spikes that arched up and across the room, impaling everything in their path.</p><p>When she straightened up she saw the blank, staring eyes of the guards, each guard with blood streaming from around the spike through their neck. She'd only gotten a glimpse of their positions, but her aim had always been exceptional. She turned to the last occupant of the room to see Denton Weeks fumbling for the gun at his side, his face full of terror.</p><p>She could have pretended that what she did next was only because of her current muddled state, but that would have been a lie. She knew exactly what she was doing when she reached out and grabbed Denton Weeks' wrist. Again she had that sense of being able to feel every single atom that he was made of, all the bits and pieces on all scales. She looked into the terrified eyes of the man who'd caused the massacre in Fairfield, the man who'd tortured Root, and then...she unmade him.</p><p>It was grotesquely fascinating to watch as his entire body convulsed and spasmed. His head sunk into his body and his limbs folded up as she turned his skeleton to dust inside him and his organs to liquid. The few seconds it took him to die must have been agonizing and when she looked down at the gelatinous human puddle at her feet, all she felt was satisfaction.</p><p>She couldn't have said why she took the box with the remains of the artifact with her when she left, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that she'd never had that last question answered, the one that should have been her first question. There was so much she'd learned, but now she'd never get to learn the name of the builder who'd saved her life twice now and who, in return, she'd killed.</p><p>As she was getting a gun from one of the dead guards (trying and failing not to catalogue every part of the gun and the body), she heard a loud crash and screams from down the hall.</p><p>It sounded like Root had gotten free after all.</p><p>They met in the hallway, Root dragging a very dead guard behind her by one ankle. There was blood on her face and shirt--Shaw didn't think it was hers--and those thin black lines from her tattoo had stretched across every inch of exposed skin Shaw could see.</p><p>"Shaw." Root's face broke into a smile that was only marred by the blood spatters. Or maybe that made it better. She froze and her eyes dropped to Shaw's arms. "What happened to you?"</p><p>Shaw looked down at her own arms, but they looked normal again. She could still feel the builder's power pulsing through them, but there were no visible traces. "Long story, but we should get out of here before the backup gets here."</p><p>Root didn't stop staring at her arms. "I can't open a portal in here, so we need to go out the way we came. Or I could just blast a way out." Her smile turned vicious. "Give the bureau a goodbye gift to remember us by."</p><p>"Looks like you already got a head start on that."</p><p>The sound of many, many boots on the concrete floor killed that plan before it even started. Shaw thought she could probably transform the hallway, cut them off from the guards, but then what? Let Root kill everyone in the building on their way out? Try and open a path through the ground? She looked down at her arms again, unsure exactly what the limits of her powers were, and spotted something she'd forgotten all about. Despite all the creepy blue light and liquid that had been all over her hands, the doppelganger ring was still there and intact. An idea formed.</p><p>"Root, put your hand on my shoulder, but <em>don't</em> touch my arms." Root didn't hesitate and her hand was warm against Shaw's skin. "And drop the dead guard. We don't need a souvenir."</p><p>"Oh." Root looked surprised, like she'd forgotten about the guard. She dropped the ankle and the guard's leg fell to the ground and bounced once off its booted heel. "What's the plan?"</p><p>"I'm taking off my ring." It slid off her finger easily and she tucked it into her pocket. The sound of the guards got closer as they waited. "Come on," Shaw muttered impatiently. "You've been looking for me, and now I'm right here."</p><p>The guards had just rounded the corner, guns raised, when the hallway started to fade away leaving them in a new, dark, featureless hallway. Shaw breathed out. They may have just put themselves in another dangerous situation, but she liked their odds better in this one.</p><p>"That was clever," Root said with appreciation. "I'm not sure the city would be able to find you in the bureau regularly, but whatever happened to you arms lit you up like a beacon. What did happen, by the way?"</p><p>"Let's get somewhere safe first. Any ideas on how to get out of here?"</p><p>"Yes, but we need to get away from the bureau. There's too much interference here. This way." Root tugged at her with the hand still on her shoulder, and didn't move it even after they started walking.</p><p>"Is the artifact in the box?" Root asked as they walked along the dark hallway.</p><p>"Not exactly." She didn't want to explain why she'd brought it. "The bureau knows where I live. They might have someone watching the place."</p><p>"I think She can take us right into the apartment, but we'll need to do something else to get out again. Assuming you wanted to pick up some things before we find somewhere to hide from the bureau."</p><p>"It'd be nice, but only if there's a really low risk." She wanted her artifacts and her weapons, but not enough to get in a fight tonight.</p><p>"She thinks we'll be okay." Root tugged at her again. "Over here." They turned to face the wall and Shaw only hesitated a second before stepping forwards into it. The wall vanished and a new passage stretched before them that looked different from the previous hall (Shaw had been starting to suspect it had been a loop). "The city is trying to trap us, but She can see where we need to go. There's very little it can actually do to us."</p><p>"What else can she see? Anything back at the bureau?"</p><p>"We're out of range, but She told me that before we left She saw Denton Weeks was dead. Your doing, I presume?"</p><p>"Yeah." The way his entire body had collapsed on itself was more disturbing now that she was walking next to another human, one she didn't want to hurt. She jammed her hands in her pockets, mind full of an analysis of the material of her jeans.</p><p>"Good." Root's hand squeezed her shoulder briefly. "I wish I'd been there to see it. Or participate."</p><p>"No, you don't." Though Root's sadistic streak was fairly large, possibly large enough to include enjoyment at watching the man who'd tortured her get turned to jello.</p><p>"You'll have to explain why later, because we're here."</p><p>"That was fast."</p><p>"Distance can be optional in some places." Root led her right through another wall and out into her loft. The room was silent and dark and Shaw immediately felt better being home, however briefly.</p><p>"I'll grab my things, and you should pack as well," Root said, finally releasing her.</p><p>"Yeah." Shaw was aware that she was kind of out of it and that Root was giving her basic instructions to compensate. It should have annoyed her, but instead it felt like a relief. Root had her back in this.</p><p>Packing was the worst. Everything Shaw touched was a new headache, a new stream of information and understanding. She thought she could have picked apart one of her shirts thread by thread and made a new shirt out of it and she wasn't sure that she wouldn't do it by accident if she lost focus for even a second.</p><p>She was cramming weapons into a pack when she felt Root brush against her side. She jumped back and kept moving away from her, putting a safe amount of distance between them despite the hurt look on Root's face. "Don't."</p><p>A little frown creased Root's forehead, but she nodded. "Okay, Shaw. Are you ready to go?"</p><p>Shaw looked around her dark loft, wondering if she'd ever come back. "Yeah, let's get out of here."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I spent a lot of time trying to decide what I wanted the builders to look like and no one answer ever seemed correct. I got opinions from a few people on the most likely form for beings with their societal structure and powers and the overwhelming consensus was 'something ant-like'. Since builder magic is touch-based, the idea of having many limbs to use makes sense, though the ant comparison only kinda vaguely works. So I went with 'probably maybe look like they have a lot of limbs or tentacles and multi-faceted eyes but who knows'. The idea that they could reform even their own shapes was important as well. I also was indecisive about how much to reveal about them and was, at one point very early on, kicking around an idea that maybe Shaw ended up on their plane, but in the end I guess what makes ancient, mysterious beings cool to me in stories has always involved them keeping some of their mystery.</p><p>on a slightly unrelated note: I've been working on another shoot fic unrelated to this one (and yes i also need to finish the last vampire au fic i know) and it's going to be an au of the book 'gideon the ninth' with the person of interest characters instead of the book characters. i'm really enjoying working on it so far so hopefully it'll keep going well. it will contain MASSIVE spoilers for the book since it follows the same plot line (mostly...there are a bunch of changes), and i strongly suspect it will have at least one very big spoiler for the sequel 'harrow the ninth' though i'm still trying to figure out if there's a way around that. both the books are excellent (and gay! lesbian necromancers in space!) and i'd super recommend NOT spoiling them by reading my fic first. so basically, if you find yourself with some reading time soon and you're a fan of my fics  and want to read the next one i write, you should check out the books.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Experimenting</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The apartment door had a metal grate across it secured with a padlock that looked like it hadn't been disturbed in years. Root wasn't sure why the apartment was fenced off, but it ultimately didn't matter. She'd never been there before, but there was a familiar symbol on the door among the other graffiti that let her know she was in the right place. Without her ring, she should have been stuck, but now seemed like the opportune time to test if she could gain entrance without it. She placed her hand on the door and focused, searching with her mind for anything she could interact with. The marks helped conceal portals that had been fixed in place, a trick she planned to learn once she had free time. She knew what portals felt like and it wasn't hard to spot this one. It was tucked away in the tiniest fold of reality so no one would stumble on it accidentally and it was easy to pull it into view once she saw how it was done.</p><p>"Just how many of these places are there?" Shaw asked from behind her as a new door appeared over the existing door.</p><p>"I know of two dozen and I doubt that's all of them." Root opened the new door and stepped through into a room that almost resembled an apartment. There was what must have been a tiny living room with a stone and log next to each other that might have been a couch, and beyond that a larger bedroom with an actual bed that had a hint of vines carved into its wooden frame. The walls and ceiling were covered in wallpaper printed with extremely real-looking entwined branches and vines. It was like stepping into the lightly-furnished idea of a forest.</p><p>"Is this another one between our world and the fae's?" Shaw asked. She dropped her bags on the bed.</p><p>"Possibly. I suspect it's the easiest to make portals to, though I'm not sure why." The main crafter workshop was different; she'd never figured out what other plane it was linked to. Her god cut in with new information. "Actually it's apparently between our world and the elemental plane. Not the best option, but we're short on choices."</p><p>"Right." Shaw stood stiffly by the bed, hands in her pockets again. She still hadn't told Root what had happened, though Root had a few guesses. "Is there a bathroom that isn't a weird forest?"</p><p>She half got her wish. The first part of the bathroom featured a floor carpeted with something that was almost grass and a pond set into the floor with a small waterfall emptying into it from high up on the wall. If Root squinted she could almost see how it might have been a shower and tub in another world. There was another door at the back of the room that led to a very normal-looking part of the bathroom with a toilet and sink. Root was curious how the plumbing worked here, but too sleepy to look into it.</p><p>Shaw walked past her into the bathroom, careful to keep as far away as she could, and turned on the taps on the sink. Root watched as she scrubbed at her hands until her skin turned red.</p><p>"Maybe you should try something else, Lady Macbeth."</p><p>Shaw rolled her eyes at that, but turned off the water. "It was worth a shot anyway."</p><p>"Want to tell me what happened now?"</p><p>Shaw stared into the mirror above the sink. "Not really, but I should." She left the bathroom, still maintaining her distance. "Can I take a shower in this...thing?"</p><p>"I think so."</p><p>Root used the sink to wash the blood off herself and then settled herself on a large rock near the entrance while Shaw stripped. This would be the second time in a handful of days she got to hang out in the bathroom while Shaw bathed, though she doubted this time would end as well. The first thing Shaw did when she waded into the knee-deep water, was hold her arms under the waterfall with a grimace on her face.</p><p>"Is it cold? The water, I mean."</p><p>"No, it's nice. This just feels weird. Everything feels weird now." Shaw splashed water on her face and then looked down at her arms again with a frown. "Not looking forward to a year of this."</p><p>Root didn't ask her for details again--Shaw would talk when she was ready. Instead she--respectfully (mostly)--watched Shaw quickly rinse off under the water. She'd expected Shaw to get out afterwards and go back to the bedroom, but instead, after a few minutes of inspecting the water and prodding the bottom of the pond with her foot, Shaw sat down in the water and leaned back against the edge of the pond. Root had been seriously considering going to sleep and trying to talk to Shaw again in the morning (her prison break earlier and subsequent rampage had taken a lot out of her), but the peaceful picture of Shaw relaxing in what wasn't quite a tub in what wasn't quite a bathroom compelled her to stay. She crept over, keeping her distance so she wouldn't spook Shaw, and started taking her pants off.</p><p>"Root…." Shaw's voice held a warning.</p><p>"I'm putting my legs in the water and I'd rather not get my jeans soaked." She chose the corner of the pond so she could lean against the wall and not invade Shaw's space, and dangled her legs into the surprisingly warm water. Whoever had come up with this place was a genius. "I wonder if I can change the locks on the place, so to speak. I could get used to this."</p><p>"Can't say I'm crazy about the...woodsy-ness, but at least it's less of a death trap than your last place."</p><p>"True." She had hated the house for housing Her captors, but it had also been where she'd joined with Her. It was hard to imagine what she'd look for in a new place, but she was rather taken with the waterfall. "This can be a trial run of the place."</p><p>They both fell silent watching the water pouring into the pond. Where did it drain out? Was there plumbing underneath the stone bottom of the pond? Root would have to go over the place thoroughly tomorrow to get to the bottom of all the irregularities. In-between worlds didn't operate within the confines of reality, but that didn't mean they were allowed to not make sense.</p><p>She let her eyes drift shut, not to sleep but to connect more fully with her god. After being cut off from Her earlier they'd both been actively maintaining their awareness of each other as much as possible. No words were needed for the comfort they both got from that and if it weren't for the fact Shaw might need her as well right now she'd have spent the evening alone with Her. But it was nice to sit here like this with both of them and enjoy the splash of the waterfall and the warm water around her legs.</p><p>"I met the builder," Shaw said after a while. "The one in the artifact. I'd say that they weren't what I'd expected, but I don't know what I expected. Something large and...old maybe. They were powerful and all, but…." She tilted her head back to rest on the floor. "They talked about a lot of stuff, about what happened and why they made the artifacts and why the others left, but I can get into that later. The part that matters now is that they're dead--they helped me destroy the artifact they were in and then, uh, gifted me some of their power."</p><p>"They're not still alive inside you or anything then?" Root had suspected something along the lines of what Shaw had told her, and she'd worried about that part.</p><p>"No, they're definitely dead." Shaw frowned at the ceiling. "Seems like a waste." She lowered both her arms into the water and looked down at them. "I have a one-time dose of some of their power, which I'm not enjoying very much, but at least we can make a deal with the fire elemental now so I can get the fae back their artifact."</p><p>"Do they hurt? Your arms."</p><p>"No, they don't hurt. It's...I can feel the components of anything I touch now, and more than that, I can tell how to take things apart piece by piece and how to make something new from the parts. It's a constant stream of information and it's distracting."</p><p>"Is that what happened to Denton Weeks?" Her god had told her Weeks looked like a sack of skin full of liquid. It had probably been a horrible way to die, a thought which made her quite cheerful.</p><p>"Yeah, I could see all the parts of him and then…I dunno, it was like I unassembled him." She didn't sound nearly as pleased about his death as Root was.</p><p>"It's not like you to be upset about killing someone, especially not someone like Weeks."</p><p>"Oh, I'm not upset. Good riddance to that asshole, but I'm not sure...what if I do that to someone else without meaning to? It would be so easy to do and I'm not sure how much control I have yet."</p><p>That explained why she'd been acting the way she had. It was definitely worrying, but Root couldn't help feeling a little bit pleased that Shaw was being so careful to avoid harming her. It was very sweet. "We'll figure it out, Sameen."</p><p>"Dunno how we're going to do that."</p><p>"We'll figure it out," Root said again, more firmly, "because I have no intention of waiting a year until you can touch me again."</p><p>Shaw chuckled. "You really do have a one-track mind, huh?" She rolled her head to the side to look over at Root. "And what happens if we don't figure it out?"</p><p>Root felt pinned to the wall by Shaw's stare. Was Shaw asking her what would happen to them being, well, <em>them</em> if they couldn't have sex anymore? Or was she reading too much into it? Should she answer it seriously or with a joke? Would not answering be worse?</p><p>"You look like you're falling asleep," Shaw said before Root had finished panicking enough to answer. "If you fall in right now I won't be able to help and you'll drown."</p><p>It took Root a second to realize that Shaw was making a joke. Maybe she really was falling asleep.</p><p>"You didn't use that crystal again to break out or anything, right?" Shaw asked.</p><p>Root finally found her voice again. "No, nothing like that. This is normal exhaustion from using a lot of power earlier. I'll be fine after some sleep."</p><p>"Right." Shaw studied the waterfall across from them. "Must have sucked being back in that place."</p><p>Root stiffened momentarily and had to force herself to relax again. It was just her and her god and Shaw here. She was safe. "I can't say I was a fan, but I redesigned the architecture of their cells down there, so it'll be a long time before they can lock up anyone again."</p><p>"How much of the building did you leave standing?"</p><p>"More than I would have liked." Shaw turned to look at her and it was her turn to stare at the waterfall instead of making eye contact. "I'd rather not talk about it anymore tonight."</p><p>"Okay," Shaw agreed easily. "If you ever wanna go finish off the rest of the building though…"</p><p>Root chuckled. "Right now what I want is sleep." She pulled her legs back up onto the floor and got up, wanting to escape the tension Shaw's earlier question had brought with it. Shaw got up as well and both of them dried off in silence.</p><p>"I'm sleeping on the floor," Shaw announced when they got back into the bedroom. "You need the rest more and I'm not going to risk rolling over and having one of my hands touch you while I'm asleep."</p><p>"We could put a row of pillows in the middle to keep you on your side," Root suggested. They'd only just started sleeping in the same bed together recently as a real thing and now this. No, a year of this definitely wasn't going to be acceptable.</p><p>"The weird carpet grass thing is pretty soft," Shaw said as she pulled a blanket off the bed. "I'll be fine."</p><p>Root started to protest, but Shaw cut her off. "Listen, if I sleep in the bed I'm not going to get any rest because I'll be worried about this power...activating when I'm asleep."</p><p>Root didn't fight her on it anymore and climbed into the surprisingly comfortable bed. Tomorrow, when her brain wasn't foggy from exhaustion, she'd figure out how to fix this.</p><p>She slept poorly, her dreams plagued by clinically white cells and needles, but also by something dark and powerful that lurked in the corner of her vision and vanished when she turned to face it.</p><hr/><p>Shaw didn't sleep well either. She turned over and over restlessly and, once she actually managed to fall asleep, she woke again a short time later with a faint memory of a dream. She'd seen herself in the dream sitting opposite the builder, but she hadn't been able to hear what they were saying. When she'd tried to move closer, there'd been a burning pain in her head that had woken her up. Eventually she did sleep for longer and only woke up when she heard the door shut.</p><p>Root was no longer in bed and her shoes and jacket were gone. Shaw debated following her, but Root would most likely be gone by the time she got dressed and left, and she didn't think she'd be able to get back into the apartment on her own. And also the bed was now up for grabs. The floor hadn't been uncomfortable, but there'd been a chilly draft from somewhere that she could have done without and she heaved a satisfied sigh as she sank into the soft bed. The pillow smelled like Root and the sheets were still warm from her body heat. She slept far more soundly than she had before.</p><p>The next time she woke up was when Root shook her shoulder.</p><p>"I got you breakfast, sweetie. It'll get cold if I let you sleep all day." Root stepped back a respectful distance, a gesture Shaw greatly appreciated at the moment. She'd been worried Root would still insist on butting into her space in some attempt to prove that Shaw couldn't hurt her, but so far she'd been nothing but respectful of the current circumstances. It made Shaw feel a little better about the whole shitty situation.</p><p>"What time is it?" she asked as she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.</p><p>"A little after nine." Root reached out a hand, tousled Shaw's messy hair, and then smirked at her outraged look. "Come out to the other room when you're ready."</p><p>Root had done well in her quest for breakfast much to Shaw's delight. There was a greasy bagel sandwich that involved eggs, bacon, and hot sauce, and coffee that was way too good for the cardboard cup it came in. Root had a styrofoam container of french toast with little packets of syrup and only smiled indulgently when Shaw stole a slice of it.</p><p>"I got you something else," Root said as Shaw finished off her food. She picked up a plastic bag from the floor and dumped the contents on the table.</p><p>"You rob a hardware store?" Shaw asked as she looked over the odd collection of items. There was a block of wood, a small hammer, a tiny plant pot (which looked cracked from the rough treatment), and some other odds and ends. "What's all this for?"</p><p>"I thought you might want to experiment with your new powers and I wanted to give you some different types of materials to work with so you wouldn't have to wreck our stuff."</p><p>"Oh." It wasn't a bad idea though she wasn't sure she wanted to try out her unasked for new powers at all, but eventually she'd need to and if they were going to help the fire elemental next then she should probably get started. She gingerly picked up the block of wood. It felt smooth and light in her hands and her mind filled with a stream of information about every aspect of it. "What should I do with it?"</p><p>"Start with something simple maybe. Can you make it into a sphere?"</p><p>When she'd killed the guards and Denton Weeks, it had felt so easy, so natural to reshape things, but now, when she held the wooden block and imagined it being a sphere nothing happened. She tried concentrating really hard until she saw spots in front of her eyes and her head throbbed, but the block of wood remained unchanged in her hands.</p><p>"It's not working anymore." She almost tossed it at a wall in annoyance. Did this mean she was stuck with the invasive rush of information in her mind anytime she touched something but couldn't do anything with it? Fucking lame.</p><p>"You used your powers back in the bureau. What was different there?"</p><p>"I don't know. There was a lot of shit going on and I wasn't exactly taking notes. I just did what needed to be done. This is dumb." Shaw was aware she was probably sulking, but she felt the situation merited it.</p><p>Root chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Maybe you're overthinking it? Artifacts work by intent, so maybe this is similar."</p><p>"How would you know?" Shaw grumbled as she set the block down with a thud.</p><p>"As someone who suddenly was given a large amount of power in a single day, I'd say I have a better chance of understanding than anyone else will," Root said mildly.</p><p>Somehow the similarity hadn't occurred to Shaw, but Root wasn't wrong at all. The biggest difference was that Root would have had her god to help her and the builder who'd dumped their powers on Shaw was gone. Root was acting so calm and reasonable about the whole thing though that it was hard to keep sulking without feeling childish. Shaw sighed. "How did you learn to use your powers? I mean, I'm guessing your god walked you through it, but was there a trick to it or something?"</p><p>"I'm not sure I'd call it a trick exactly, but I had a lot of trouble at first until I realized that trying to forcibly pull power wasn't going to work. I had to relax into it." Root's smile was rueful. "It took some getting used to."</p><p>"Relax, huh?" Shaw picked the wooden cube back up. "Guess I have nothing to lose by trying."</p><p>The flow of information about the wood returned the minute her fingers touched it again and this time, instead of fighting it or trying to grasp each piece of it, she let it run through her mind like background noise. She could see how the cube was put together, how the pieces could come apart or rearrange, and instead of trying to will that to happen, she thought about her goal. Artifacts worked by intent, and,while this didn't feel quite the same, there was something familiar there still. It was almost like the wood became soft and malleable in her hands and she could simply shape it into the image in her mind, but in doing so she became aware of every molecule of it while simultaneously having to not focus on every molecule. It made her head throb in warning. "I don't think humans are suited to this kind of power." But she had an only-slightly-lumpy wooden sphere in her hands now. "Can't believe that worked."</p><p>Root's eyes danced with excitement. "Do you think you could do it again?"</p><p>"Maybe." There was definitely an element of intent still, like taking the safety catch off a gun. It took her three more tries before she was happy with the result: a small wooden statue in the shape of a familiar dog.</p><p>"It looks just like Grim," Root said with approval.</p><p>"Couldn't think what else to make." She picked up the hammer and easily separated the metal head from the handle and reformed it in her hands. The result wasn't as good this time, but then she hadn't seen Root's horse nearly as often as Grim and it still looked enough like Bacchanalia that Root's face lit up with delight.</p><p>"I think I got the hang of it," Shaw said as she tried not to notice how soft Root's face had gone as she examined the little horse statue. "Do you have an infused artifact you're not attached to? I want to try something."</p><p>"Yes, let me get it."</p><p>Root returned with a metal bracelet and Shaw could tell the second she touched it that it was an infused artifact. Her ring had been a constant discomfort in the back of her mind that she'd tried to ignore, but she'd been able to feel the way a sliver of something living had been woven into the metal band. The bracelet was similar and unwinding the thread of power from the metal was child's play. They were such different materials that they almost fell apart on their own. She dropped the pieces of the bracelet to the table.</p><p>"What happened to the energy that was stored in it?" Root asked curiously as she poked at the remains.</p><p>"Dissipated the second I separated it. Don't know what happened after that."</p><p>"Do you think you can free the elemental safely?"</p><p>"Yeah, maybe." It had been so simple, but doing it with a living thing on the line felt riskier.</p><p>Root looked up at her. "Can you control it now?"</p><p>Shaw could see where this was going. "Maybe, but it would be a hell of a thing to be wrong about."</p><p>"I had an idea about that, too." Root pulled another bag from under the table and took out a pair of heavy-duty, long, black welding gloves. "What if you put these on to start out with?"</p><p>Shaw pulled the gloves on and gave herself a minute to absorb the new information about them. It was getting easier to let the rush of that fade to the back of her mind. "This might work."</p><p>Root put her hand on the table, palm up and waited. Shaw hesitated and then gingerly touched the tip of Root's index finger with her own. There was another surge of information, not unlike what she'd felt when she'd grabbed Denton Weeks--all humans were made of similar components after all--but there was something extra. Something massive and strange. "I can feel her, I think. It's like she's connected to you but not part of you the way an artifact would work." There was no way to separate Root from her god the way she would have dismantled an artifact.</p><p>"Want to try without the glove?"</p><p>"Yeah." The safety catch she'd felt on her power earlier was firmly in place and she was confident now it wasn't going to slip arbitrarily. She took the glove off and touched Root's finger again and then her palm. She could push aside the invasive stream of information and it was just Root's hand against hers. Root's hand <em>in</em> hers. How had they ended up holding hands? She withdrew hers immediately. "I think it's okay."</p><p>"Wanna try to stress test it?" Root asked, arching an eyebrow and grinning at her.</p><p>"I'm not sure if it's a good idea to purposefully make me lose control," Shaw objected despite the spike of want that instantly ran through her.</p><p>"What if you weren't touching me with your hands the first time?" Root's face radiated both innocence and desire at the same time which should have been impossible. "I think it's an important test, seeing how you react in extreme circumstances, don't you?"</p><p>"What'd you have in mind?" So far Root's ideas had worked out well, so she was game to try, especially if it meant she got to get off.</p><p>"Let's move to the bedroom."</p><hr/>
<hr/>
<hr/><p>Root was really sad they couldn't fuck in the fun pond in the bathroom just yet since there was no way the arrange themselves to work with what she had in mind, but considering she hadn't known if Shaw would be able to touch her at all earlier this morning she could wait. There would be other chances hopefully.</p><p>Shaw sprawled out naked on the bed on her back, one leg bent up and Root's mouth went dry at the sight of her. Even after all the times they'd been together she was still struck with awe and disbelief that she got to have Shaw like this. She wet her lips and stepped up to the edge of the bed. "This is what I was thinking." She dangled a pair of handcuffs from one finger.</p><p>Shaw's expression didn't change as she shook her head. "No, I'd rather...not right now for those. Nothing I can't stop touching easily."</p><p>Oh well, on to plan b. Root tossed the handcuffs over her shoulder. "Think you can hold onto the bed frame then? It'll be up to you to keep your hands there, but you can let go if you need to."</p><p>Shaw answered her by scooting up and grasping a bar on the head board. "Not a problem."</p><p>Root had thought this through very carefully this morning while walking through the city. Shaw had been rattled by her experience yesterday in a way Root had never seen her, and it had been unsettling. If she still wasn't confident enough to risk touching Root during sex then that meant she wasn't fully at ease yet, and that meant taking this slower than she normally might have.</p><p>Getting to devote all her energy to exploring Shaw's body with her hands and mouth was hardly a chore. Things usually ramped up so quickly between them that this slow teasing approach was new for them both. In fact, Root couldn't recall ever having taken so much time with foreplay unless it was more in the realm of tormenting her partner. This wasn't that. It was about making Shaw feel good, but not pushing her too far too fast.</p><p>She could feel the stiffness Shaw had at first when she ran her hands over her stomach and up to cup her breasts. When she leaned down to kiss Shaw, it seemed at first like she might pull away, but then Shaw's lips met hers, and she hummed in approval when Shaw's tongue pushed into her mouth. When she pulled back, Shaw's face was flushed with color and the uncertainty had left her eyes. There was still a slight stiffness in Shaw's body which took a while to fade, but by the time Root had worked her way down between Shaw's legs and was sucking marks on the insides of her thighs, the tension in Shaw's body had changed to a much better type. She looked up the length of Shaw's body to meet her eyes and liked what she saw there: raw desire and nothing else. She smirked and leaned down to put her mouth on her.</p><p>Usually this was the point where Shaw would tangle her fingers in Root's hair and tug at it, but there was no familiar touch this time. She didn't have time to be disappointed, because Shaw came within seconds of Root pushing into her with two fingers. Root relished the feeling of Shaw's muscles spasming around her fingers and the way her whole body clenched tightly before falling back to the sheets, as limp as Root had ever seen her. When she climbed back up Shaw's body she found her utterly relaxed with a small smile on her lips. Root beamed down at her and then kissed her, happy to take advantage of Shaw's languid state to get in some extra making out. She was proud of both of them--herself for fucking Shaw into a stupor, and Shaw for not once letting go of the head board. Shaw's fingers were still wrapped around the bar, even if they were drooping now.</p><p>When Shaw finally started responding, she kissed Root back aggressively rather than pushing her away.</p><p>"Shit," she murmured appreciatively when Root ground down against her thigh. Root grinned at her.</p><p>"Think you're ready to use your hands now, sweetie, or do I get to ride you until I come this time?"</p><p>"You say that like it's a bad option," Shaw muttered. Her fingers twitched on the head board and her eyes raked up and down Root's body.</p><p>"The headboard still seems to be in one piece," Root pointed out.</p><p>"It does," Shaw agreed and let go with one hand. She settled it on Root's hip tentatively and then gripped her more firmly. Her other hand joined in, fingers wrapped around Root's hips to guide her in steady circles against her thigh. "Your god isn't participating?"</p><p>"Not this time, no." She'd been hanging back to let them sort this out on their own. Shaw didn't need the extra distraction today.</p><p>"Yeah, I think I'd be able to feel if she was." One of Shaw's hands wandered up Root's side and squeezed her breast. "I can sort of sense her now when we're touching."</p><p>"That should make things interesting next time."</p><p>"Definitely." Shaw's hand roamed higher and cupped her face for a second before tugging her down for a kiss. She froze for a second when she felt Shaw's other hand skim down her thigh. Her breath hitched as Shaw's fingers touched her.</p><p>"If I wasn't so tired, know what I'd have you do?" Shaw murmured in a low drawl into her ear.</p><p>"What?" The single word was all Root could manage at the moment. Shaw's fingers worked her up with practiced ease and Shaw's other hand was back at her breast and the two points of contact felt like they were connected through her body by a thick line of heat.</p><p>"First you'd get on your hands and knees on the bed while your god got you so worked up your arms and legs gave out."</p><p>Root bit down on Shaw's neck, trying to hold on and not come yet. Shaw grunted in appreciation and pushed into her achingly slow with a single finger. Root bit harder.</p><p>"Maybe I'd mess with your tattoo a bit," Shaw added, voice unaffected by Root trying to bite a chunk out of her. "Bet I could see exactly what she does to you now."</p><p>Root stopped biting down to suggest they try it out immediately but Shaw pushed into her with three fingers this time and all that came out of her mouth was a moan.</p><p>"Then once you were begging--"</p><p>"I don't beg."</p><p>"Uh-huh, sure." Shaw curled her fingers and Root's retort vanished from her mind before she could get it out. "But once you did, I'd finally fuck you. Nice and slow to start and then so hard and fast the neighbors would complain about all the noise."</p><p>"No neighbors here," Root breathed into the side of Shaw's neck.</p><p>"Well, we'd have to be loud enough they could hear it all the way back in the real world. And that whole time you wouldn't get to come, not until both me and your god agreed you'd earned it."</p><p>Root's entire body clenched at the thought of that--the two of them working together like that and focused entirely on her. "Why would I agree to that?" she asked faintly. She would have insisted they do it right now if she hadn't been seconds away from coming, but Shaw didn't need to know that.</p><p>"Because afterwards, once you could walk again, I'd go fuck you again in that weird hippie forest tub you're into. Right under the waterfall or whatever."</p><p>Root moaned in approval and dug her fingers into Shaw's side. She was so close now that she could barely keep rocking her hips against Shaw's fingers. Her entire body felt molten hot and wound so tight she thought she might snap. Shaw's fingers twisted inside her, making her feel so incredibly full and somehow still wanting more. She might have tried to ask Shaw to add another finger, but Shaw's other arm wrapped around her and she dragged her nails right down Root's tattoo. The sensation of it burned away every thought in Root's mind as the building pressure inside her finally overflowed and she lost herself in one glorious drawn-out rush.</p><hr/>
<hr/><p>She wasn't sure how long she stayed breathing hard against Shaw's neck but otherwise unmoving and incoherent, but Shaw pulling out of her tugged her back to reality. She swallowed a few times, trying to find her voice. "Sounds like a plan," she said, throat raw from noises she couldn't even remember making.</p><p>Shaw chuckled and draped an arm over her back. "Thought you might see it my way."</p><p>"You made a very convincing argument." She wasn't sure her legs were still working. "Glad to hear we're past all this not touching me for a year nonsense."</p><p>"This whole thing is still not fun at all, but I'm, uh, pretty confident it's under control at least."</p><p>"Seemed to me like you had plenty of fun, Shaw." She thought she could maybe move again, but, even though she was uncomfortably sticky and hot, she didn't risk moving while Shaw was holding her.</p><p>"That was a good idea this morning," Shaw said. Her fingers traced a raised line of Root's tattoo. "Getting the stuff from the hardware store and all."</p><p>"Happy to help." More than happy. Shaw was always patching her up and making deals with unnaturals and other dramatic acts, but she always seemed so self-reliant. And now that Root had finally found a way to help her in return, she felt peaceful.</p><p>"So what now?" Shaw asked.</p><p>"I'm taking a nap before anything else, and then we should get in touch with John and discuss going back to California."</p><p>"Oh shit, Reese." Shaw struggled to get up, but Root didn't budge from on top of her.</p><p>"I texted him last night while you were packing at your apartment. He's holed up somewhere safe by now hopefully and waiting for us to call, which we can do when I wake up."</p><p>"Oh, uh, thanks for that." Shaw settled back down. "I should have thought of that."</p><p>"You had a lot on your mind, sweetie."</p><p>"Yeah, I guess I did." Shaw's arm returned to wrap back around Root. "I don't like the idea that I could kill someone I didn't want to kill. That isn't what I do. If I'm trying to kill them, that's fine, but not because something else acted through me. I don't want some fucked up power in me that I can't control."</p><p>It was more than Root had expected her to open up about it and she fought down a smile that wouldn't have been appropriate for the current topic. "You can control it now, though."</p><p>"I still don't like it. I'll be glad when it's gone, but yeah, at least I can control it now." Her other hand came to rest lightly on Root's back as well. "A nap sounds good."</p><p>Root fell asleep to the feeling of Shaw's arms encircling her.</p><hr/><p>"This place is--" Shaw watched Reese struggle to find something nice to say about the apartment. "--unique."</p><p>"You can just say it's weird and creepy," Shaw said.</p><p>"Root seemed to like it."</p><p>"Root lived in a asbestos-filled fire hazard eating canned food for months so her taste in living spaces is questionable."</p><p>"You live in a loft with almost no furniture, no curtains, and a fridge full of guns."</p><p>Shaw bristled. "What's wrong with that?"</p><p>Root swept back into the living room before Reese could get himself socked in the jaw. "Are you both ready?"</p><p>"Ready for what exactly?" Reese asked. "You didn't tell me what the plan was. Are we flying to California?"</p><p>"Not exactly." There was a piercing whine and the wall next to Root distorted as a dark, swirling portal opened in front of it. "We're going to take a field trip through the land of the gods."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. The Land of the Gods</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"You could have warned us," Shaw growled as she rubbed her throat. Root only smiled sweetly at her and Shaw wondered what Root's god would do if she tied Root up and left her there. Hell, she didn't even need to use rope; she could just have the ground swallow Root up. If there had been a ground in this place.</p><p>"What the hell was that?" Reese asked from nearby. His eyes were still watery from the entire near-death experience Root had led them into without warning. Shaw could now vaguely recall Root talking about how breathing in her god's world worked differently, but, at the time, she'd been extremely distracted by other things and had mostly forgotten until she'd stepped through the portal and found herself unable to breathe. She'd almost blacked out before Root came over and, instead of doing anything to help Shaw, had smacked her on the ass. The fit of homicidal rage this had caused Shaw had been enough to make her momentarily forget to die and she'd been about to tackle Root when she'd realized that she wasn't gasping for air anymore.</p><p>"You just need to stop thinking about it," Root had explained as Reese staggered around in distress behind her. Shaw had postponed Root's murder long enough to kick Reese in the shin as hard as she could, which seemed to do the trick.</p><p>"Warning you wouldn't have helped," Root said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I was confident that two experienced former agents such as yourselves would be fine." She turned away and took in the world around them. "And isn't this worth it?"</p><p>Shaw wiped her eyes and took in the world of the gods. Vast was the first word that came to mind. She had the impression she was the size of an ant in Times Square. It was hard to say why since there was nothing distinct to compare with--there were columns all over that might have been the trunks of enormous trees stretching from the shallow water that covered the ground to vanish out of her range of sight above them. Or maybe that was below them. Directions didn't appear to be working the way she was used to. The water around her feet looked oily and moved oddly, like it was thicker than it should have been. There wasn't anything she could see under the mostly-clear water. It was hard to tell if there was a surface below the water since the strange yellow-grey of the world could have been the ground or could have been stretching to infinity. She felt a little nauseated from looking at it for too long. Even the 'air' (she tried not to think about how she wasn't actually breathing) was odd. Every movement was slow and rippled like they were underwater.</p><p>"I think I'm going to throw up," Reese groaned. His eyes were firmly shut.</p><p>"Don't be such a big baby," Root scolded. "You should be honored to be guests here. Other than me, you're the only humans who've ever been here."</p><p>"Can we just get this over with?" Shaw asked. "We've still got a lot to take care of once we get there."</p><p>"So impatient." Root carefully picked her way over to Shaw, not acting at all disturbed by the way the world rippled around her with each step. "You may not be happy to be here, but there's someone here who's happy to see you." She pointed off behind Shaw.</p><p>At first, all Shaw could see was a dark shape moving through the trees. It was massive, the top of it visible as far up as she could see, and looked like a starry void. As the enormous shape got closer, it drew into itself and shrank down to a size that, while still large, was recognizable. There were four legs, and two pointed ears, and a long snout.</p><p>"Is that Grim?" Shaw asked in disbelief. She was certain it was him, even though he was so different from how she usually saw him. His form seemed less stuck on 'dog' and instead shifted from something dog-like to something cat-like and back. There were glowing blue lines all over his starry coat, circles and lines that Shaw had only seen on him before when he'd been near Root's god. As he approached, he shrank rapidly until he was back to the large dog size Shaw usually saw him at. He trotted through the shallow water to greet her and she reached down to scratch him behind his ears. His fur still gleamed with stars like a galaxy and his fur felt like running her fingers through smooth water. "Hey, buddy. Guess it was way past my turn to visit."</p><p>Grim wagged his tail enthusiastically and licked her face.</p><p>"I thought we were in a hurry," Reese wheezed from nearby. His face was a little green, though he'd managed not to throw up.</p><p>Shaw reluctantly got up from her crouch. "Can Grim come with us?"</p><p>"If he wants to," Root said. "This is his world, so he can go where he likes."</p><p>"Yeah, I wasn't sure if there were territories or something." It sounded dumb saying it out loud.</p><p>"Nothing like that," Root said. "Physical space here is different, which means--" She stopped and smiled at Shaw's pained look. "This way."</p><p>It took a few minutes for Shaw to get used to walking through the not-air of the world. It was easier, she found, if she didn't look down at her feet and instead focused on one of the distant tree trunks ahead. They were theoretically walking right through the woods, but somehow never managed to come near any of the trees even when Shaw was absolutely sure they were headed right for one. It helped not to think about it. It helped not to think about anything too much. She switched to staring at Root's back instead and tried having more constructive thoughts.</p><p>"What's it like?" Reese asked her as they walked. "The builder's powers, I mean."</p><p>"Fucked up is what it's like." Shaw glared at her own hands. She'd gotten better at not being overwhelmed by new information every time she touched something, but it was still intrusive and unwanted. "Once we finish sorting everything out, I'm going to find a way to get rid of this shit."</p><p>"It could be useful," Reese suggested. "There's that shadow demon out there causing trouble still. I wouldn't turn down another weapon to use against it."</p><p>"Great, then you can have the horrible headache powers and fight the demon."</p><p>"It was just a thought." Reese lowered his voice. "Are you doing okay? I mean, it's almost like that thing possessed you."</p><p>"The builder is really dead, so it's not possession." Shaw glanced to where Root was wandering ahead of them, probably out of hearing range, but with her warlock powers who knew. "I'm...getting used to it." Root had helped a lot, but the unfamiliar powers were still too new for her to not be suspicious of.</p><p>Something moved through the trees ahead of them and Shaw reached for her gun. Root broke into a run and vanished behind the trunk of a tree (how had she reached a tree?) and Shaw cursed and took off after her, releasing her grip on her gun which was probably useless here anyway.</p><p>When she rounded the trunk that Root had vanished behind, she came to a halt and caught her breath as she took in the scene. There was an enormous black horse with a mane and tail of blue flame standing docile in the center of a clearing while Root fussed over it, eyes full of adoration. Shaw rolled her eyes. Root was supposed to be a terrifying warlock that could rip the world apart or whatever and here she was being a total idiot over a horse. Since Bacchanalia had quite possibly saved Shaw's life last time she'd shown up, Shaw was prepared to be generous and kept her comments to herself.</p><p>"Don't suppose there's a cart you can hitch her up to so we can make this trip faster?" she asked. She hadn't been around enough horses to interpret their body language, but the way Bacchanalia turned towards her and showed her teeth was easy to understand. "Uh, never mind."</p><p>Root sprang up onto the tall horse's back with a cat-like agility that made Shaw's jaw drop. No way had Root done that on her own without the help of her warlock powers. Or maybe it was some property of the world they were in; she did feel a lot lighter than usual. She stopped gaping like an idiot and tried to recover her dignity. "Are you planning to ride the rest of the way? Because I don't think we can keep up with a horse."</p><p>"We'll stay at your pace," Root assured her. The dopey look on her face as she petted Bacchanalia's neck made it clear she wasn't going to budge on this. "You know, Shaw, Grim could technically give you a ride if you were interested. You'd have to ask him, of course."</p><p>Shaw looked down at Grim who was staring back up with his tongue lolling out. She let herself imagine what it would be like to sit on the back of a huge dog and race through the forest. An intriguing idea, but she could still remember what her last brief ride on a horse had felt like. "No, I think I'm good walking on my own two feet."</p><p>Root made good on her word and didn't range that far ahead as they set off again, but it still gave Shaw and Reese some privacy to talk.</p><p>"What'd you find out about your former partner?" she asked.</p><p>"Not much. I tried every contact I could think of that she might have used, but she's steered clear of all our past associates. But I did find...well, let's just say that her still being alive wouldn't shock me anymore."</p><p>A flicker of movement off to one side caught Shaw's eye and she squinted out through the foggy tree trunks. There were some vague shapes moving in the distance, too far for her to see much of. "Do you think she'd be interested in becoming a warlock? Maybe she's auditioning for the role or something."</p><p>"Kara was...she believed in what the bureau stood for, but in her own way. She saw the protection of the country and humanity as something that required people to do a lot of ugly, violent things in secret to keep things running, and she enjoyed being the one to do them. If the bureau betrayed her, I don't know where her loyalties would lie."</p><p>"Doesn't sound that different from us," Shaw said as she craned her neck to try and make out the undulating shapes. "Root's one of the most sadistic little shits I've ever met, even if she has been a little less homicidal lately." She wondered if that had anything to do with Root's god. "And Root wanted to be a warlock."</p><p>"Kara wasn't the same as Root, but point taken." Reese bumped into her and she almost stumbled. "What are you looking at?"</p><p>"There's something out there." Shaw pointed. "I can't make out what it is or if it's getting closer."</p><p>"Maybe we should ask Root?"</p><p>"Yeah, maybe." Shaw thought she saw something that might have been a long neck stretching through the fog with a shapeless head at the end. And then another and another, weaving in and out. "Hey, Root?"</p><p>"Yes, we see it," Root said from much closer by than Shaw had expected. Bacchanalia now stood directly behind them. "It's not pleased we're here, but She won't let it near us. We should keep moving."</p><p>"What is it though?"</p><p>"Something you definitely don't want to tangle with," Root said firmly and turned her horse away. "Let's keep moving."</p><p>It was hard not to watch the thing out in the fog as they walked, and Shaw found herself trying to put familiar shapes to the strange form. There was certainly something about it that looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. What she was certain of, though, was that it was getting closer.</p><p>"I thought you said your god wasn't going to let that thing near us," Shaw called to Root. "Because it sure looks like it's headed this way."</p><p>Root tsked in annoyance and slid off her horse to land with a soft splash in the ankle-deep water. "She <em>did</em> warn it, but maybe it requires a bit of a push." She took her jacket off and handed it to Shaw. "We'll deal with this."</p><p>"Can't she do that on her own?" Shaw asked, but Root had already left. She took a step forwards as if to follow, but Reese dropped a hand on her shoulder.</p><p>"Do you have a plan for helping her? Because this sort of thing seems more like her territory."</p><p>Shaw shook him off but didn't try to follow Root again. There was some urge to rush after her when she went into danger that had momentarily overruled her common sense. Maybe she'd had to see Root half-dead one too many times now. She tried to take comfort from the fact Bacchanalia was still next to them and seemed completely unconcerned. She didn't think the horse would have watched passively if Root had been in real danger.</p><p>It was hard to judge distance in this world, but Root covered the ground between them and the monster in the fog quite rapidly. She halted before she reached it and held her arms up in front of her. With a quick motion, she parted her arms to the sides, and the heavy fog in front of her parted as well, revealing the creature that had been hiding in it.</p><p>It was massive--larger than a three-story house by Shaw's guess--but the majority of its height came from its multiple long necks, each supporting a thick head with a webbed crest. It was too far away to tell for sure, but Shaw would have bet the thing was covered in scales--something about it felt distinctly reptilian to her. The actual body was thick and low to the ground, possibly even in the ground. Shaw thought she saw a hint of flippers, like this as some aquatic monster from the depths of the ocean. As Root stood before it, each head opened its mouth to display a maw full of sharp, curved teeth.</p><p>"Maybe we should--"</p><p>That was all Reese had time to say before all the heads struck, shooting forwards and down at where Root stood. There was a sudden stillness, like an intake of breath, and then a low boom echoed through the forest. An almost-invisible sphere of energy centered around Root expanded rapidly, driving back the surrounding water in a wave all the way to where it splashed around Shaw and Reese's feet. The massive tree trunks that had seemed too immense to be touched by any force swayed sickeningly around them, and the many-headed creature that had been mid-attack half a second before went flying backwards through the trees, its flippers waving impotently in the air and its heads snapping desperately in all directions. There was a distant splash as it hit the ground, and it vanished from Shaw's view. Root remained standing exactly where she'd been, and carefully flipped a lock of hair back over her shoulder.</p><p>"Show off," Shaw grumbled, impressed despite herself. Was it wrong to be extremely turned on by Root using her powers to punch out a building-sized monster?</p><p>"Did you know she could do that?" Reese asked. "We saw her fight the other warlock, but that wasn't like this."</p><p>Shaw knew what he meant. When Root had fought the warlock, both of their attacks had been precise and aimed at each other. This energy blast could have wiped out a city block in her estimation. "She did something similar when Greer tried to put that cuff on her, but not on this scale. And then when we were in the bureau…." She hadn't seen the full extent of the damage there, but what she had seen had been impressive.</p><p>"I'm starting to understand why other unnaturals might be willing to start a war over warlocks showing up on their world. The one in Fairfield was bad, but it took time to destroy the town. I think Root could level a whole town with a few blasts like that."</p><p>"Good thing she's on our side." It was probably a very good thing for the bureau that Shaw had still been in the building after Root had gotten free, otherwise Root might have blasted the entire building into smithereens and danced in the rubble.</p><p>The grin on Root's face as she returned reminded Shaw of the Cheshire cat: unnerving and entirely too pleased with herself. The extra black lines of the tattoo were visible at her neck and on her hands, but receded even as Shaw watched. "I think we won't be bothered for the rest of our trip."</p><p>"Can you do that on any world, or only here?" Reese asked.</p><p>"Oh, anywhere. Usually She advises against it since it can cause a bit of a mess. A shame, really--it's quite a rush." She took her jacket back from Shaw and chuckled when their eyes met. "Maybe later, Sameen."</p><p>Shaw looked back one last time as they left, but there was no sign of the creature out in the fog.</p><hr/><p>They emerged from the portal into the chilly air of an early evening in northern California. The field they were in the middle of was empty other than for high grass and some shrubs, and the lights from buildings twinkled far in the distance. Root could tell they were in the right place, though, because the familiar smell of smoke was drifting through the air, bringing with it memories of running through a burning town with Shaw at her side. She turned around and took in the hungry, red glow of the fire burning on the hills above them. It moved like it was alive, crawling through the trees and leaving only ash in its wake.</p><p>"Hope you both remembered your artifacts," she said over her shoulder to the other two. Her own infused artifact that would have protected her from smoke inhalation was still stashed away in the bureau somewhere, but she didn't need it anymore. She pulled a barrier up around herself to keep the smoke out and started through the undergrowth towards the fire.</p><p>"This isn't where we were last time," Shaw said when she caught up with her. "At least, I don't think it is. Hard to tell in the dark."</p><p>"That fire was mostly contained, so your elemental friend moved on to a different one." Her god had been able to find the elemental this time once they'd gotten closer in Her world. "We're not that far from where you were though."</p><p>"Does the elemental start the fires? Make its own habitat or something?"</p><p>"I wouldn't think so. Ice elementals don't make snowstorms, and wind elementals can create small wind blasts, but not the strong wind patterns of the world. Elementals gravitate towards their habitats, but they don't create them. No, fires are most often caused by lightning strikes. And by humans."</p><p>"That figures."</p><p>The smoke got thicker as they approached the treeline at the bottom of the nearest hill. The fire was still a distant glow above them, but Root could sense the presence of something powerful much closer to them. Maybe the elemental had been waiting for them. "It's this way."</p><p>If Sneezy had shown up as a green glow in Root's mind, then the elemental ahead of them was a deep blue one that she could have tracked even without the dim light from the moon overhead or the flashlight Shaw pulled out. After several minutes of fighting their way through the dense foliage of the woods, they stepped out into a clearing. The air was far hotter than it should have been at this distance from the fire, and so dry that Root thought her throat would have been raw if she hadn't had her protective barrier keeping her safe.</p><p>"This is the place," she said.</p><p>"I don't see any…." John's voice trailed off as a massive form crashed through the trees on the other side of the clearing.</p><p>Shaw's description of the elemental as a 'giant fucking skull-headed bear that's on fire' hadn't done it justice. The bear was bigger than Root had expected, and the dark made it seem even larger. The skull head was polished bone that reflected the fire light and glowed red. The ribcage beneath its thick coat glowed like fire logs. Root's breath caught when the flame-filled eyes turned to look directly at her. Shaw hadn't told her how wonderful the elemental was. Terrifying, yes, but also wonderful.</p><p>"Hey, fire bear, let's get this over with."</p><p>Root was torn between horror and amusement at Shaw's complete lack of respect for an entity that was probably centuries older than she was. She wondered how Shaw had treated the builder she'd met. Had she been just as irreverent?</p><p>The elemental was still staring at her and her god politely suggested that maybe she should try to be diplomatic here. She took a step back and held her hands out at her sides. "We're here as Shaw's protection, nothing more. We mean no harm to you or your friend." Being a warlock had turned out to involve an unfortunate amount of reassuring unnaturals she wasn't there to fight them.</p><p>The fire elemental finally turned away from her and reared up on its hind legs. The sight of the enormous bear with paws larger than her head looming above her almost made her reach for her power automatically. She took a deep breath, unclenched her fists, and rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans. This wasn't an attack, She assured her. Root watched in fascination as the bear thrust its paw into its own chest and pulled out a glowing red rock. An artifact, she could tell.</p><p>The bear lowered the glowing rock to the ground and set it on the grass with a gentleness Root never would have guessed such a massive creature possible of. Shaw walked forwards without hesitation to kneel next to the rock, the giant bear not seeming to discourage her at all.</p><p>"I'm just going to examine it first," Shaw explained. "Once I touch it, I should have a better idea of what needs to happen for me to free whoever it is that's stashed in this thing. Okay?"</p><p>Her voice was calm and level, and Root was reminded that Shaw had once wanted to be a doctor. This was the calming voice of someone talking to a particularly nervous patient, and she could recall Shaw using that same tone on her back in one of their early encounters. She'd sprained her ankle and hadn't been able to move and hadn't trusted Shaw fully yet. Shaw had just kept up a calm explanation of all her actions as she'd gotten Root's foot unstuck from under the beam that had fallen on it and made a makeshift brace for it. Root thought she might have sat quietly and let Shaw kill her by the end of that encounter. (Admittedly, Shaw had called her a fucking moron once they'd gotten back to safety, but Root didn't hold that against her).</p><p>And to think they'd kicked Shaw out of medical school for her lack of a bedside manner.</p><p>Shaw's calm explanation worked wonders on the elemental since it dropped back to all fours and watched Shaw while shifting its weight back and forth between its paws as if it was anxious. The elemental acted far more like an animal than the other ones Root had met, right down to its lack of communication. It was also far older than any of the others. Maybe those things were connected.</p><p>Her speculations were cut short when Shaw's forearms started to glow. That definitely hadn't happened before. The glow was blue, though not the white-blue fire that Grim and Bacchanalia sometimes emitted. This was a deeper blue-grey like a stormy ocean. Shaw placed her hands on the rock, her eyes shut in concentration.</p><p>"Can you tell what she's doing?" she asked Her quietly, but apparently She had as little insight into it as Root. The power of the builders was alien to both of them.</p><p>Without removing her hands, Shaw opened her eyes and looked over at the elemental. "I think I can free them. There's always going to be some risk, but I'll do the best I can. Okay?"</p><p>Root didn't see any change in the elemental, but Shaw must have spotted something she missed, because she nodded and turned her gaze back to the rock. She left her eyes open this time and took a deep breath. At first Root thought she was imagining it, but after a second the fact that the blue light was shining through Shaw's skin in multiple places became more obvious. It was as if every vein in her body had lit up with that same blue glow and it was illuminating her. Root could have sworn even her eyes were glowing blue.</p><p>"This can't hurt her, can it?" She kept her voice low so as not to distract Shaw. Her god wasn't sure, though She didn't sense anything alarming in terms of Shaw's life energy. Root nodded, unhappy, and chewed her lip as she watched. She didn't have to wait too long, because within seconds the red glow from the artifact vanished and the stone under Shaw's hands crumbled to dust. Shaw sat back heavily on the ground as the light faded from her skin and Root hurried over to crouch down next to her.</p><p>"You okay, sweetie?" she asked, resting one hand on Shaw's back.</p><p>"Yeah, I'm good." Shaw sounded out of breath, and Root could see sweat on her face. "I think it worked."</p><p>The elemental bear was hovering nearby, but Root couldn't see any sign of whatever it was Shaw had freed from the artifact. "Maybe you should get up, just in case it didn't work. Or in case our friend decides to turn on us now that they don't need our help anymore."</p><p>"Just wait a second." Shaw sounded confident.</p><p>It took Root a second to notice the glow forming on the other side of the clearing, but within seconds it was blazing so brightly that it must have been visible for miles around. Root quickly expanded the protective barrier around herself to encompass Shaw as the ball of red fire spun and grew. Embers drifted through the air and swirled in circular patterns to join the glowing ball. Once it was the size of a small car, it started changing shape, solidifying. Brown fur flowed over a skeleton made of burning ash. Jaws of white bone snapped shut on thin air before they, too, were covered with fur. The new bear that stood before them didn't have a skull head and was much smaller than the first bear, but it was still enormous for a bear cub. Because it was definitely a cub, Root realized as she looked at it. There was something in its build and face that marked it as a young animal, not ready to be apart from its mother yet.</p><p>Elementals could be close to their offspring, her god had told her, but the way the larger elemental rushed over to greet the cub was completely unlike normal elemental behavior. Root watched, utterly bemused, as the larger elemental snuffled and nosed at its cub with concern.</p><p>"Do you think it'd be rude to remind them we really need that other artifact?" Shaw asked from next to her.</p><p>"She says that this elemental has been in bear form for so many centuries, that it's seen the lives and deaths of so many bears over the years and learned from them. She thinks that maybe this elemental chose to learn something from the bears, rather than keeping itself distant like most of its kind prefer to."</p><p>"I guess there are worse things it could have chosen to learn," Shaw said. "Like mauling."</p><p>"Hmm, probably shouldn't assume it won't do that." She tugged on Shaw's arm. "Let's get up."</p><p>John joined them as they stood though his eyes were fixed on the bizarre reunion taking place in front of them. "I know they could both kill us, but it's still kinda cute."</p><p>Shaw didn't seem to be in danger of falling over, but she swayed on her feet a bit as she took a step forward. "Can we get that artifact back now?" she called. "No offense, but hanging out in a forest fire all night kind of sucks."</p><p>The elementals both turned to look at her with fiery eyes and Root again had to stop herself from getting ready to fight. But then the larger elemental reached into its chest again and pulled out something much smaller than the first artifact had been and tossed it towards them. A tarnished silver crown set with unpolished sapphires bounced across the ground to land near their feet.</p><p>"I recognize that one," Root said as Shaw scooped it up. "It's the right one."</p><p>"Finally, something goes according to plan," Shaw said, turning the crown around in her hands. "Where's the nearest faerie circle? I want this shitty debt sorted out tonight."</p><p>"Sweetie, you're swaying on your feet. I think getting some rest before we have to face the fae can only work in our favor." She was prepared to use her powers to drag Shaw to a hotel and knock her out if necessary.</p><p>"Fine, but first thing tomorrow, this ends."</p><p>"Of course. That shouldn't--" Root froze in horror. "It's here. The shadow is here." She could feel it all around them like greasy black oil hovering in the corners of her mind. Had it been here the whole time, hiding?</p><p>"Where?" Shaw wasn't swaying at all anymore. Her whole body was rigidly at attention.</p><p>"All around us. It's not a warlock this time." It was slithering through the darkness in circles around them as if waiting for them to leave the clearing. If it was here in its own form, then it would be weakened, but Root didn't want to fight it here. This felt like an ambush.</p><p>"So why hasn't it attacked us yet?" John asked. He had an infused artifact in the form of a metal sphere in his hand.</p><p>"Maybe it doesn't like its chances against all of us," Root said, nodding towards the two fire elementals, both of which were glowing ominously and looking out into the darkness. "I think it's only after us, though. If we leave it will follow."</p><p>"Can you open a portal back to your god's world?" Shaw asked. "We'd be safe there, right?"</p><p>"Working on it." It wasn't like her god could open an infinite number of portals. Each one took time and energy and She'd already done it twice recently. "It might take Her a minute, so be ready to fight."</p><p>Across the clearing, she saw the smaller bear turn towards her and its firey eyes bored into her.</p><p>"<em>Leave now. It will follow, but you will have time.</em>"</p><p>"<em>We'd love to, but we're a bit stuck at the moment</em>," she told it silently, the same way she'd talked to the formless fae back in the park.</p><p>"<em>We can open the way for you, but you must go</em>."</p><p>"<em>Aren't you worried it will attack you next?"</em></p><p>"<em>It is not interested in us. A deal was made in desperation, but I will settle our debt now. Go quickly</em>."</p><p>There was that familiar whining sound in the air and a portal twisted into existence in front of them. Root couldn't see much through it, and hesitated, unsure she wanted to dive into a portal made by elementals that no longer had a use for them. But when her god urged her to go, she went, with Shaw and John following close behind her. The world twisted away and reformed and they all landed in a heap on the floor of Shaw's loft.</p><p>"Can it follow us?" Shaw asked as she picked herself up. She made a distressed noise when she saw the large chunk of her floor that the new portal had taken out.</p><p>"This is why you shouldn't arbitrarily open portals in the same plane," Root told her. " And I'm not sure it has to follow us. It won't be hard to guess where we went." Root stood up and felt around them with her power. Nothing yet. "I suspect it was staking out the elemental there to find us, but maybe it wanted to drive us back here for some reason." A deal, the elemental had said. She had an idea what that deal might have been. "We should get somewhere safe."</p><p>"Back to the other apartment?" Shaw suggested.</p><p>Root nodded, still focused on trying to sense any imminent attack. "Let's regroup there and then we can figure out what changed."</p><p>"What do you mean, what changed?" John asked.</p><p>"What I mean is that if Shaw's friend from the diner works for the shadow like we suspect, then it could have found Shaw when she was there the first time. It's been waiting for something to happen, and we need to figure out what, because I think it's ready to show its hand finally."</p><p>"Shit," Shaw said softly. She looked exhausted. "Let's go then."</p><p>Root led the way out into the night.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>As I started writing what I imagined the realm of root's god would look like, I realized I was describing something quite similar to the Ash Lake area from Dark Souls with a slightly different color palette. So I just leaned into it, hydra and all. Credit where credit's due though and if you're curious you can see what Ash Lake looked like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJxeSbGs9JQ">in this video</a> (not my video). There isn't a lot going on in that area but it sure is pretty and ethereal and man is the hydra annoying to fight. </p><p>All the shit goes down in the next chapter. See you there.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Shadow</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"The apartment is too far," Root decided once they made it down to the street. "Shaw needs to rest somewhere." Shaw had been leaning heavily on her arm on the way down the stairs, something she'd never have allowed herself to do if she'd had any choice.</p><p>"I'm fine," Shaw protested without any conviction. "Where else could we go?"</p><p>"The subway," Root said slowly, her mind working through the details. "We can go back to the place Sneezy was hiding. It's better than staying on this plane." It was still too far for her liking, but it was closer than the other apartment.</p><p>She was grateful for John's help in getting a cranky and tired Shaw down the steps of the nearest subway station and propped up on a bench. Shaw slumped sideways onto her the minute they sat down and was asleep before the train got there. She grumbled something threatening when Root woke her up to board the subway, and immediately passed back out on one of the seats.</p><p>"Is she going to be okay?" John asked quietly.</p><p>Root looked down at Shaw. She had dark circles under her eyes and was a little pale, but her breathing was steady and She didn't seem worried. "I think she just needs some sleep. When she used the infused artifact to free Her, it broke the artifact, so I suspect the process puts a lot of strain on whatever, or whoever carries it out. I don't think she's in any real danger though."</p><p>"And what about us? What about the shadow?"</p><p>"I'm not sure. I think whatever it was waiting for has happened, which means it's hunting us now. Greer may be after us, too." It occurred to her that it might have purposefully been trying to drive them back here because Greer and Decima were in the city. They were lucky there hadn't been an ambush waiting for them. "We need to have a plan, and we need Shaw back to full strength. Her powers could give us an edge in a fight." She hated the idea of Shaw having to drain herself like this again, but they might not have a choice if they wanted to survive.</p><p>"I feel kind of useless," John admitted. "Both of you have all these powers now, and I've only got a couple infused artifacts which aren't going to help much against this demon."</p><p>"We may need you after the fight," Root said. "Even if we win, it'll take a toll." A thought occurred to her. "And there's the original artifact we just acquired, maybe you can use that."</p><p>"What does it do?"</p><p>The subway screeched to a halt at their stop then so the conversation had to get put on hold while they half-carried Shaw out onto the platform.</p><p>"Good thing we keep coming here so late," John said as they climbed down onto the tracks.</p><p>"Are we there yet?" Shaw asked sleepily.</p><p>"Almost, sweetie. You need to walk a little further and then you can sleep as much as you want." Root wasn't sure that was true, but it got Shaw moving again. The trip to the in-between and down the tunnel was uneventful enough, and they found the clearing that Sneezy had inhabited unchanged since their last visit. Shaw curled up on a patch of grass just outside the clearing and was asleep within seconds. Root put her jacket over her and tucked some of her hair back out of her face. Would Shaw be up to fighting so soon? If she wasn't then maybe they could escape back to her god's world until she was. It wasn't a permanent solution, but it could buy them time.</p><p>She made Shaw as comfortable as she could manage and returned to the clearing. John had an actual campfire lit in a ring of stones. It was an infused artifact that fed the soft flames rather than wood, but it gave off heat anyway. She sat down across from him and held her hands up to warm them.</p><p>"I'm getting some deja vu from this," John said. "Except last time it was you taking a nap."</p><p>"Humans were never meant to have powers. Warlocks are an exception since we have a patron to help balance the load and protect us, but even that can take a toll. And Shaw doesn't have anyone to help her."</p><p>"She has us."</p><p>Root shook her head. "It's a nice sentiment, but it's not the same."</p><p>"Maybe it would have been better if she'd made a pact with the builder then."</p><p>"Making a pact with a patron stuck in an artifact has some severe consequences, if you recall." She could vividly remember how much pain she'd been in after channelling Her power back when She was still trapped. And when Decima had cornered her, she'd almost died while escaping. Shaw had kept her alive at the cost of ending up in a bargain with the fae which was why they were stuck here now. This all led back to the poor decisions she'd made and the cost they'd had for Shaw.</p><p>"Is there anything we <em>can</em> do?"</p><p>"Keep her safe while she sleeps and come up with a plan to kill all the things that are after us. Or the demon at least." The fae were another problem and one that probably involved politics rather than fighting. "It's going to be weakened from being on this plane, but I don't trust that it doesn't have a plan. It wouldn't attack us if it didn't stand a chance." The real question was <em>why</em> it was here. It could have made a pact with another human and sent a warlock after them who wouldn't have suffered from the same power limit that it did on this plane. There had to be a reason it hadn't done that.</p><p>"Any idea why it showed up all the sudden?" John asked. "Has it just been lurking in the forest waiting for something to happen?" He looked startled when Root laughed at the question. "What?"</p><p>"A demon that lurks in the background waiting to activate? Doesn't ring any bells?"</p><p>John looked at her blankly and she sighed. "Never mind." What a waste of a pun. "It's likely the shadow demon used the elemental to push us into getting the artifact back. It had to do it in a way that we wouldn't suspect, of course, so it finds an unnatural desperate for the help Shaw could provide with the builders' artifact and convinces it to steal the fae artifact as a bargaining chip. Shaw had to go after the builders' artifact at that point and they knew exactly where she'd go after and were waiting."</p><p>"The elemental was working with the shadow demon?" John looked disappointed. "The little one was kind of cute."</p><p>"I don't think it was working with it exactly, so much as being influenced by it. The little elemental seemed more coherent and it said it was settling its debt with us by allowing us to escape."</p><p>"That was nice of it, I guess."</p><p>"Most unnaturals dislike demons, and I've gotten the impression that shadow demons are even more hated than the rest." Once she might have questioned that unnaturals would ever be merciful or empathetic towards humans, but her god had made her rethink that. More than that she was starting to think that maybe humans--some humans--actually deserved that compassion.</p><p>"You were telling me about this." John pulled the tarnished crown artifact out from under his coat. "Can you tell what it does?"</p><p>Root held a hand out for it. John didn't hesitate to hand it over, something that surprised her despite all they'd been through in the last week. She wasn't used to being trusted by anyone, let alone John Reese, even for something so small. She examined the crown closely and let her power seep into it.</p><p>"I think the primary range of powers here involve projection. The infused artifact Shaw had that was made from it let her make a static, illusory duplicate of herself for a few minutes, if you recall. You could make something much more robust with this, something that mimicked speech and movement and possibly even a physical form." She let her fingers drift over the rough chunks of gemstones set in the band. Whatever had been trapped in here lacked raw power, but their abilities had a subtle precision that was rare. "It could be useful in a fight, but it's not exactly the secret weapon we were hoping for." She handed it back to him and forced a smile onto her face. "It was a long shot anyway."</p><p>"We dealt with the shadow demon's warlock before. We'll figure out a way to beat it again." He sounded confident, but she thought the confidence might have been an act for her benefit, a bit of kindness she didn't want and wouldn't have known how to respond to even if she had.</p><p>She was suddenly exhausted, weighed down by the endless procession of bad circumstances that kept getting worse. "I think I'm going to follow Shaw's example and lie down for a few minutes." John's sympathetic look only made her feel worse.</p><p>It felt only natural that she went to join Shaw in the grassy hollow between the trees. Shaw was sprawled out on her stomach, as deeply asleep as Root had ever seen her and didn't stir when Root sat down next to her. Root knew that Shaw would most likely be annoyed when she woke up, but it didn't stop her from curling up right next to Shaw and resting a hand on her back. What Shaw had done earlier had been nothing short of incredible, and the two of them together would be an almost unstoppable force, but she still felt deeply uneasy.</p><p>Shaw muttered something indiscernible and inched closer to her without waking, almost like she was seeking out the warmth of another body. Root stopped breathing as Shaw butted her head up right against her chest and grumbled something else. Her breathing evened out shortly after.</p><p>It was unfortunate that Root's nap had just been abruptly cancelled, but there was no way she was going to let the event of adorably-sleepy Shaw cuddling her in her sleep go to waste. There was a decent chance they'd die fighting the demon next time it found them and there wasn't a better way she could think of to spend what potentially could be her final hours.</p><hr/><p>The dream was back, faint and annoying. Shaw saw herself from a distance, sitting on the floor of that not-space inside the artifact with the builder across from her, and just like last time all she could hear were muffled voices. She thought maybe she heard the builder say something about "scattering the remains", but that made absolutely jack shit in the way of sense to her. She tried to move in closer to hear better, but a sudden cold draft hit her and the dream shattered to pieces.</p><p>She woke up, annoyed and cold. When she sat up, she found Root sitting against a nearby tree. She was holding something in her hands in her lap, but her knees were drawn up blocking Shaw's view. When Root noticed her, she tucked whatever it was away in her pocket.</p><p>"Feeling better, sweetie?"</p><p>"I don't think I'm in danger of passing out on my feet anymore, but I could stand to punch someone." There was a faint pain just behind her forehead that slowly faded away. "Are we back in the subway?" Her memory of what had happened before she'd taken her nap was a little fuzzy. Ever since the builder had gifted her their power, it felt like her brain was an etch-a-sketch someone had given one good shake to.</p><p>"It was the closest place I could think of that might be safe. Sneezy's mark is still at the entrance, so no one but the fae or their guests should be able to enter. We're still on the guest list, I suppose."</p><p>Something kicked at the back of Shaw's mind, but her brain was already too abused to pay it any attention. "Did you and Reese come up with a brilliant plan yet?"</p><p>"Not yet, no. I needed some sleep as well."</p><p>The not-quite-grass next to Shaw was suspiciously bent, like someone had been lying right up against her, but she decided to let that mystery remain unsolved. "I guess we should make one, then." Her stomach growled. "After breakfast. Lunch? What time is it anyway?"</p><p>"It's hard to say since time doesn't necessarily wor--"</p><p>Shaw cut her off. "Never mind. Time can fuck off. What sort of food do we have?"</p><p>They didn't have much. Even Reese, whose tendency to have hidden reserves of power bars and water bottles put Shaw in mind of a Saint Bernard, hadn't had a chance to grab anything on the way. He only had a single bag of salted peanuts that had been in his jacket pocket for a questionable amount of time. Shaw ate all but one of them, which she gave to Root for some reason she didn't examine too closely.</p><p>"Do you think Decima is also going to be after us?" Reese asked, a morose expression on his face as the last of his peanuts vanished. "Because it might be harder to--"</p><p>Root jumped to her feet, body tense like a startled cat. Shaw followed her to her feet, automatically reaching for the shock wave glove in her pocket. She looked a question at Root who held one finger to her lips and stared into the darkness.</p><p>"They've found us," Root said quietly. "They got through the mark somehow."</p><p>Shaw almost slapped herself in the face. "The fae. Sneezy told us they were forming an alliance with the shadow demon. They could let it right in."</p><p>"What do we do?" Reese asked in a whisper. He had put on the tarnished crown artifact while Shaw wasn't looking. It was unfortunate that they had to be quiet so she couldn't tell him how dumb he looked.</p><p>"We need to--"</p><p>The not-ceiling above them exploded in a rain of stone and metal fragments. Shaw tackled Root without thinking only to find that none of the debris had hit them thanks to the shield Root had thrown up. She got up, feeling a bit silly and taking effort to ignore the way Root was smiling at her, like Shaw had accidentally spilled some secret.</p><p>"We need to move somewhere else," Root said as the smile left her mouth. Around the neat circle of the bubble she'd surrounded the three of them with, fragments of rock were still falling from time to time. "This way."</p><p>She led them into the forest in the opposite direction from the entrance. Shaw hadn't been in this deep before. If they made it as far as the next station, what would a subway platform look like on this side? She couldn't recall seeing one back near the entrance.</p><p>Root called a halt before they got that far and they all crowded into the space between the pillar-trees (which were closer together and more densely packed here).</p><p>"Very chivalrous of you to jump me like that," Root said. "Though you left poor John to fend for himself."</p><p>It was too dark to see either of their expressions, but Shaw glowered in Root's direction. "One, I couldn't knock Reese over unless I took his legs out first, and two, I figured it would bounce off his dumb crown."</p><p>"Hey," Reese protested faintly. And then to Shaw's complete and utter confusion added: "The tiara looked much better on me."</p><p>"You're definitely going to fill me in on the tiara thing later," Shaw said, "but for right now, where the hell are they?"</p><p>"I can't sense them anymore." Root sounded frustrated. "They're shielding themselves somehow."</p><p>"Maybe we should keep moving then?"</p><p>"To what end? They're between us and the exit. I can get us a portal out of here, but unless we run back to Her world, they'll just find us again."</p><p>"Yeah, I'd rather not go back there." It had to be a last resort, and Shaw didn't think they were quite there yet. "How many of them were there?"</p><p>"I'm not sure. Definitely the shadow demon, at least three warlocks, and some humans."</p><p>"<em>Three</em> warlocks. What the fuck."</p><p>"It would be a great time to have that plan right now," Reese hissed.</p><p>"Can't believe you two forgot to make a plan," Shaw agreed.</p><p>"You didn't help either!"</p><p>"I was asleep!"</p><p>"Shh!" Root's hand smacked Shaw's arm in the dark. "We need to move into the light a little more. I'm trying to hide our energy, but if that doesn't work then we're an easy target."</p><p>They crept through the trees back towards the slightly brighter part of the tunnel. Up ahead, Shaw could see what looked like this world's echo of a subway track: thick lines of metal and wood running along the ground. Nothing stirred around them. Root motioned for them to stay put and walked a few paces away, her head cocked to one side like she was listening for something.</p><p>"Can this new power you got be used for fighting?" Reese asked as they watched Root.</p><p>"I think we're about to find out." Shaw looked down at her hands doubtfully. "I can definitely transform things faster than I could with the artifact, but I'm not sure how much good it'll do against a warlock." She had some ideas though.</p><p>Root straightened up. "Oh, shi--"</p><p>Shaw didn't have time to appreciate Root cursing because the ceiling collapsed between them, faster and more aggressively than before, like something above had punched the stones down. She scurried back from the falling debris and studied the new wall that cut her and Reese off from Root.</p><p>"I don't know how they think this is going to work," Shaw said. Root could blast a hole through the wall like it was tissue paper and Shaw could just rearrange the stones to form a passage with ease. As she eyed the wall for a good spot, Reese tapped her on the shoulder.</p><p>"We've got company."</p><p>She turned around, expecting the worst, and that was exactly what she got.</p><hr/><p>Root could sense them now. Definitely three of them on the same side of the wall as her and still between her and the exit (not that she would leave without Shaw). They were like bright scarlet points of light in the darkness, stalking back and forth. She raised her protective shield around herself, a bubble that even went through the ground beneath her feet. She wasn't taking any chances.</p><p>The first warlock stepped out of the shadows: a woman she didn't recognize who reeked of demonic energy. Powerful, but in a disappointing way. This warlock was a very dim shadow of the last one she'd fought. The shadow must have lesser demons working with it like they'd suspected. Or for it.</p><p>Something pinged off her shield and she watched a bullet fall to the ground. Then a hail of bullets erupted from the darkness, battering at her shield. She almost laughed. Maybe Decima had severely underestimated her god. But when she reached for Her, she found Her uncertain. Something wasn't right here, but She couldn't tell what.</p><p>The shooting stopped, a ring of spent bullets lying on the ground around her. The first warlock had been joined by a second one, a man. More powerful than the first warlock, but he still paled next to her.</p><p>"We've got you outnumbered," he called. "You can't maintain that shield forever."</p><p>"And whyever would I need to do that?" She raised her hands and the walls of her shield blasted forwards and out, the ground churning in its passage as if enormous toothed blades were ripping through the earth. She saw the look of terror on the warlock's face in the second before her attack hit him, and then he vanished in a red mist as he was shredded to dust. She'd known they were pathetically weak, but he hadn't even tried to block her which was odd. The only signs of the woman were some dismembered remains nearby. Beyond them, out in the dark, there were no normal humans left that she could sense, and only one warlock's energy remained. They were relatively far and getting further by the second as if they were fleeing in terror. Root started to go after them, but they stopped and, after a second, turned back.</p><p>The final warlock stepped into the light and Root saw the problem that she'd missed on the last two: a metal cuff that ran the length of his forearm. His face was pale and terrified as he raised his arm. A glowing ball of dark embers formed in his palm and he hurled it at her. She brushed it aside easily and sent a single, delicate strand of power right into his gaping mouth and into his lungs where it expanded rapidly. The results were gruesome and satisfying and Root was far too pleased with herself to mind the scolding from Her about unnecessary killing. She was so busy looking over her handiwork that she completely missed the slight movement of the air behind her.</p><p>Something stung sharply on her arm and she turned around, ready to lash out but feeling her control on her powers teetering. Behind her, smiling like an evil frog, was John Greer.</p><hr/><p>The shadow demon stood before Shaw and all she could think was that whoever had named it had been dumb as shit and/or blind. It was ever so vaguely humanoid, but it was hard to tell because its entire form was burning with the brightest white light Shaw had ever seen. Looking directly at the thing made her see spots.</p><p>She looked at the ground instead and suddenly understood. Couldn't have shadows without a light source and the ground was swarming with inky shadow-tentacles. She barely paused to think as she smacked one of her hands down into the ground and pulled up a wall of dirt between herself and the incoming shadows. They swarmed over the top and she gave ground, dragging a hand along the floor behind herself to yank up more and more walls.</p><p>She'd lost track of Reese, and when she paused to locate him, it was just in time to see multiple shadows rise off the ground and pierce through him. She took a half-step forwards and froze. Reese hadn't moved an inch, wasn't bleeding, didn't even seem to have noticed the attack, almost like he wasn't really there at all and...oh, the fucking fae artifact. She'd used the infused version of it often enough to recognize the results.</p><p>The shadows rushed her again and she left Reese's duplicate behind as she fled. The shadows were fast, but not fast enough that she couldn't gain ground at a run. She waited until she had a good lead and then slammed her hand into the pillar-tree next to her. Spikes of metal twisted out from it and across the space to stab at the demon. The shadows around her ground to a halt for a second as the demon regarded her without a face. And then the metal spikes bent back and away from it, red hot where they'd touched the demon. The metal shot back at her and then there was a large, black shape blocking her view. Grim stood in front of her, as large as an elephant, and the metal broke and fell at his feet. He looked back at her and, even though she heard nothing, she understood with absolute certainty what he wanted her to do. She turned and ran back into the woods as fast as her legs would take her.</p><p>She didn't have to look to know the shadows were on the move again as she wound her way further into the trees. It was a gamble: there were more things here to cast shadows, but also more material for her to use. What she definitely didn't expect was for the shadows to reach out on either side of her with enormous dark hands and bend the trees back like it was peeling away wrapping paper. Something pierced the back of her leg and she fell, rolling a few times before coming up in a crouch. Or trying to anyway. Her leg gave out beneath her and she fell on her ass.</p><p>She cursed and put her hands on the bleeding wound. This part came easier than any of the other times she'd used her powers. She'd studied human anatomy, damn near been a doctor; putting herself back together was simple. She even got most of her blood back in before sealing it up. But as easy as it was, it still delayed her a few critical seconds.</p><p>When she looked up, the demon stood before her.</p><hr/><p>Root's arms and legs went numb and she collapsed to the ground. She glared up at Greer, teeth bared. "You used your baby warlocks as bait. Clever."</p><p>"I wanted you distracted, and I correctly surmised that killing a few peons would give you a false sense of confidence that I could use to my advantage. The larger they are, etc."</p><p>She couldn't focus enough to channel Her power now without a lot of risk to herself, risk she was willing to take but that She was not. Stay alive above all else, She chided her. Root's annoyance only grew when She added that Shaw would agree. She wasn't <em>wrong</em>, but that was playing unfair.</p><p>"Why aren't I unconscious yet?" she asked, playing for time. She slumped back, using the excuse of the real paralysis to cover her movement. Now if only she could get her arm to cooperate for one second. Her god stepped in, trying to redirect the toxin in her system to help, though Root could feel Her concern about the plan.</p><p>Tough. If She didn't have a plan b, then they were going with Root's plan b.</p><p>"This particular concoction should prove harder for your patron to quickly expel from your bloodstream, partly because it has a small amount of the same material we lined your cell with. It interrupts your connection to your patron enough that it can't use you as a conduit, but it's not quite as quick. That gives us time to have a little chat."</p><p>"I'd rather be unconscious then." She wedged her limp hand into her jacket pocket. Her fingers brushed something cold and hard.</p><p>Greer's smile was condescending. Root resolved to make his slow death exactly thirty seconds longer for smiling at her condescendingly. That was her thing.</p><p>"You may have wondered why we didn't use a cuff on you this time. You're too strong for one, we found. For the weak warlocks they work fine, but you'd just rip it off again. No, the cell is a much better deterrent."</p><p>"Your grand plan is to leave me in a cell for forever? Why not just kill me?" Her god suggested, <em>patiently</em>, that maybe she shouldn't put that idea in Greer's head.</p><p>"We'll take you out when we need you, and then return you after, like putting a hammer back in a toolbox."</p><p>"And how are you planning to control me while I'm out?" She got her fingers around the rough object and reached inwards instead of outwards. This was easier and thankfully still just barely possible for her. The black crystal only needed a tiny bit of her energy to latch onto after all.</p><p>"My friend is collecting the incentive right now."</p><p>There was no mistaking what he meant. She fought down a wave of fear and extended more and more tiny tendrils of energy towards the crystal. She had to be fast now. "Shaw is a lot more dangerous than you're giving her credit for."</p><p>"Yes, so I hear, but trust me when I say we've thought of a very thorough solution for that little problem. A pet god and a pet builder. You two will topple worlds for us."</p><p>This part was the tricky bit, and Root leaned heavily on Her strength for it. She pulled the threads of her own energy back from the crystal, gently so as not to break the connection. Strands of greedy power stretched from the crystal, clinging to her energy like leeches. She severed the connections all at once, but grabbed the crystal's threads, tying them together like a sheath of wheat. "It's a good plan, Greer. Really, I'm impressed. But you've made one tiny little mistake." It was her turn to smile condescendingly.</p><p>He raised his eyebrows, amused. "Oh yes? And what is that, pray tell?"</p><p>"You had the hubris to attack a god." She used all her remaining strength to drive the crystal's greedy tendrils out and across the space between herself and Greer, her god's power propelling it from behind like a jet engine. She saw his eyes widen with surprise as the tendrils latched on. And then...nothing. He looked himself over with a frown.</p><p>"A nice attempt, I'm sure. Whatever it was, but I think you'll find that--" He stopped, bewildered and stared down at himself in horror.</p><p>Root had never seen someone have their life drained away in under a minute. It was wonderfully awful and she enjoyed every second of his body withering and collapsing to the ground. There was a slight gurgle as he flopped limply on the dirt.</p><p>"Also, you really shouldn't have threatened Shaw," she added.</p><p>Greer took one last rattling breath and fell still. The crystal, pulsing with energy, fell from Root's limp fingers and she slumped to the ground, energy spent. She was looking forward to being able to tell Shaw that she'd been right about the crystal being useful again. A nice cathartic 'I told you so'.</p><p>The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was a pair of boots approaching.</p><p>"Shaw?"</p><p>"Afraid not," said an unfamiliar voice. "But you'll be reunited with her again quite soon." It sounded like a threat.</p><p>Root struggled to remain awake, but darkness claimed her.</p><hr/><p>Shaw had expected to die instantly, but the demon just stood there, glowing ominously. It even ignored Grim, who was crouched in front of her growling softly.</p><p>"Did you want something from me?" Shaw asked. "Because, if not, I've got places to be."</p><p>The demon didn't budge. She rose as if to leave and the shadows jerked towards her. She sat back down.</p><p>"No offense, but you're lousy company."</p><p>She waited there a full ten minutes in her estimation before she heard footsteps in the woods. Reese, maybe? But the person who stepped out of the woods wasn't Reese. It was the woman from the diner, the one Reese had suspected was his former partner.</p><p>And in her arms was a very unconscious Root.</p><p>"We meet again," the woman said, and unceremoniously dumped Root on the ground. Root didn't move, but Shaw could see she was still breathing. "I didn't introduce myself last time, my name is--"</p><p>"Kara Stanton."</p><p>"Oh, I see John told you about me. I wondered if he would."</p><p>"Are you that thing's warlock now?" Shaw asked, jerking her head towards the motionless demon.</p><p>Something dark flickered over Kara Stanton's face. "No, that wasn't an option, but--" She held her hand up. There was a dark tattoo on her hand in the shape of a sigil. The last time Shaw had seen that particular sigil it had been on a dismembered arm in a smoking crater. "--I <em>am</em> its voice for now. Think of it as a temporary tattoo."</p><p>"Congrats. I'm very happy for you both, now what the hell do you want?" She very deliberately did not let herself look at Root. There was no way they didn't know, but she wasn't going to give them any more ammo.</p><p>"Simple. We want your powers. They'll be extremely useful in our takeover of the other planes." Kara reached into her jacket and pulled out a gun. She held it loose by her side, a threat, but an unspecified one for now.</p><p>"You got a magic cuff that works on me as well?" It seemed unlikely; she could dismantle anything. Probably.</p><p>"Oh, we have something much better than that." Kara tapped the gun against her leg. "You see, the reason I can't be its warlock is because it can only have a pact with one warlock at a time."</p><p>A horrible idea surfaced in Shaw's mind and her stomach twisted.</p><p>"And the warlock it wants--" Kara's eyes were dark and angry. "--is you."</p><p>"Yeah, fuck that."</p><p>"I really hope it burns you out quickly," Kara continued. "Then I can make a pact with it instead. A much more equal one than you'll get. Did you know that a warlock can be completely at the mercy of their patron, forced to obey their every command?"</p><p>"They have to agree to that though," Shaw said, though she was less certain of that then she'd been a few seconds ago. "And there's no way in hell I'd ever agree to that."</p><p>"This is the fun part." Kara stooped down and placed the barrel of her gun directly on Root's temple. "See, if you don't play along, I get to kill her, and Shaw, I'm really hoping you don't play along."</p><p>Every single thing she could think to do, every form of attack, would take at least a second to carry out, and with that gun where it was, she didn't have a second. She looked up at the demon where it waited patiently before her. "How does this work?"</p><p>"Oh, you don't have to do anything but accept. It'll take care of the rest. Just say yes and it will start the process."</p><p>Shaw looked out into the darkness, wondering where the fuck Reese was. She didn't think she could stall long with the way Kara was eagerly hovering over Root, and she had no doubt that Kara would pull the trigger if Root started waking up. "If I say yes then--"</p><p>"Then your friend gets to live. Carefully locked away for her own good, of course, but we won't harm a hair on her head."</p><p>"And Reese as well."</p><p>Kara's face soured and she shot the demon a disgusted look. "It agrees. No harm will come to John Reese. Now, yes or no?"</p><p>There had never even been a question of saying no under the current circumstances. "Yeah, fine, get it over with." If the demon thought it could boss her around then it was in for a rude surprise, and any second she could buy now was worth it.</p><p>The burning sensation started at the junction of her neck and shoulder and hurt more than anything she'd ever felt in her life. It was like a million red-hot brands jabbing into her all at once. Two hours, and every inch of it burned to the bone, Root had said.</p><p>"Usually this takes a few hours," Kara said from the other side of the burning pain. "But it can be much faster. The reason they take their time is that going too fast can damage the warlock. Trauma or something. Fortunately, we don't care too much what state you're in as long as you can take basic orders."</p><p>Shaw gritted her teeth and held back the scream of pain that was trying to escape. She was well and truly fucked, but there had to be some way. There was a cold, slimy sensation down her spine and she could <em>feel</em> the demon now, feel its hunger for destruction, feel its will starting to push down on hers. She could easily crumble under that will without being able to lift a finger to fight back. Her stomach roiled with nausea and--</p><p>The pain vanished and everything fell silent. After a second she cautiously opened her eyes and found herself back inside her dream, watching herself and the builder sitting across from each other. And this time she could hear what they were saying.</p><p>"The artifacts give us an edge," the other her was saying. And now she remembered this conversation. "But they come at a cost, and I'm not sure if that's one I can measure. I'm not sure if it's one anyone can measure. I need to know--"</p><p>She saw herself wince and press a hand to her forehead.</p><p>"We never measured that cost," the builder said. "I'm not sure we were capable of it."</p><p>"What the hell is happening?" the other Shaw asked, still clutching her head. "Did Weeks do something?"</p><p>"No, I have merely given us a concealed moment."</p><p>"Concealed from who?" Other Shaw finally took her hand away.</p><p>"From you in a moment. You won't remember this part of the conversation after we finish, but we must be quick."</p><p>Other Shaw's eyes narrowed and Shaw was impressed by the depth of extreme suspicion and annoyance on past her's face. "Why?"</p><p>"I'm going to teach you how to make an artifact."</p><p>Shaw saw her past self stare blankly in confusion. "Why would you do that?"</p><p>"Because, in a moment, you will agree to kill me, and I will give you some of my power in exchange. But the power may have the side effect of attracting some very strong creatures to you who would try to bend you to their will. I believe there is already one after you, one that would use you not only to destroy your own kind, but perhaps my kind as well. I would prefer not to give this knowledge to anyone, but it's only fair that I give you a way to fight back should that happen."</p><p>"Wait, I'm going to <em>what</em>?"</p><p>The builder's arm didn't move, it just rearranged itself forwards, building out into a line so their fingertips just brushed Shaw's forehead. "May you never need forgiveness for your crimes."</p><p>Past Shaw grit her teeth, eyes shut.</p><p>"Oh," said the builder, "and one last thing. After you kill it, be sure to scatter the remains." Their arm retracted, and past Shaw hunched over, clutching her head.</p><p>"You asked before if we'd learned bad things from humans. We learned so much…."</p><p>The familiar part of the conversation was back, and with it, the dream faded and Shaw once again felt searing pain through her shoulder, down to her clavicle and across to the top of her arm. The tattoo was spreading.</p><p>Her fingers dug into the dirt on either side of her and she felt something, half-buried there. Yes, that would work. She forced her eyes open just in time to see Kara Stanton shoot John Reese point blank in the chest. John Reese who did not move a muscle or fall over because he was actually standing behind Kara. He bashed her over the head and she fell to the ground next to Root as Reese's double faded away.</p><p>Root was very much awake now, and staring at her in terror. She didn't look like she was in great shape but maybe….</p><p>Shaw pushed the dirt around her fingers with her power and watched it ripple and move in a line towards Root. This part was way more delicate than anything she'd done before and damn hard with all the pain making her head swim. She saw the dirt raise up ever so slightly in front of Root, thin lines forming letters in the earth. Hopefully the right ones. Root's eyes widened and she looked up at Shaw, something like hope on her face. She nodded at her once and raised one hand.</p><p>It was a short burst of power, a super-focused blast that Shaw felt instead of saw. It couldn't damage the demon, not really, but it did stagger it, force it to take a few halting steps towards Shaw. Just close enough that she could reach out and touch it.</p><p>Her hand grasped the beam beneath the ground that wasn't quite wood or metal. A subway rail, buried in the dirt. Stones worked best, but metal would definitely do. She remembered now, every single step that the builder had burned into her mind during that forgotten conversation. It was like constructing furniture from a manual, all she had to do was follow each step. Tab A went into Slot B, and the demon's energy went into the wood and metal globe forming in her hand. She scooped the last pieces of it in and weaved the top shut behind it, the veins in her arms glowing neon blue again. It was horrifyingly simple. There was nothing living that she couldn't have trapped this way with ease. No wonder the other unnaturals had been so damn scared. No wonder the city, an almost-living being, wanted her trapped.</p><p>The globe sat in her palm, warm to the touch but inert, and in front of her were the ashes that had been the demon's body. She licked her lips and looked over at the others. Reese looked stunned, but Root's eyes were shining with sheer awe. "Shaw, that was--"</p><p>"Scatter the remains," Shaw said, her throat raw. "You have to scatter them so it has nothing to come back to."</p><p>Root nodded. "I can do that." She wavered a little as she raised her hand again, but she managed to do something that made the ashes blow away in every direction. Including right into Shaw's face. "Oops, sorry sweetie. I'm not at my best at the moment."</p><p>Shaw wiped her face off--noting that her shoulder still hurt like <em>fuck</em>--and focused her attention on the first artifact that had been created in years and years. It was really damned powerful--she could tell that even without Root's fancy warlock senses--powerful enough to forge a wealth of new infused artifacts, ones that would give humans that edge even with the rest of the original artifacts gone. All it cost was leaving the shadow demon trapped for eternity. The very evil shadow demon that had tried to imprison her and probably would have used her to kill humans and maybe even Root. All she had to do was be willing to live with the knowledge she'd imprisoned it, an act that would probably never even come close to bothering her. Just as it had never bothered the builders. It should have been an easy decision.</p><p>"What the builders did to your god was wrong, Root. Right?"</p><p>Root's face scrunched up in confusion. "Of course, but what does that--" Realization dawned. "It doesn't deserve mercy, Shaw. And it could be so useful. It could protect us. And other people, I guess."</p><p>"Does your god agree with that?"</p><p>Root's silence was all the answer she needed.</p><p>Shaw looked at Reese, but he only shrugged, fine with whatever decision she made. And last she turned to her final companion, the black dog sitting near to her. He was staring at the globe in her hands, but when she looked at him, his met her eyes. She never would have trapped him like that, nor Root's god, but the possibility that she could remained. And what would she do with the next unnatural that threatened Earth? And the one after that?</p><p>"I don't have the right to make that choice," Shaw decided, not looking away from Grim. "But making no choice at all would be just as bad." And doing nothing was a choice in itself.</p><p>She'd only had the threat of being imprisoned and used against her will hanging over her for a few minutes, but that had been more than enough of a taste of what that life might have been like. She made up her mind.</p><p>"I figure it tried to kill us, which means I get to kill the fuck out of it."</p><p>She unwound the parts of the artifact that she'd so carefully constructed only moments before, and felt the demon surge free, rushing to escape, and...find nothing to return to. It hung in the air for a moment and then drifted apart, dissipating into nothingness.</p><p>"Good fucking riddance," Shaw said. She looked over to see Reese bent over Root, who appeared to have passed out again, which seemed like a great idea right now.</p><p>"Reese, wake me up in about a week, okay?" She let herself fall over backwards into the dirt, and shut her eyes. Before she drifted off, she felt a furry weight lie down next to her. Grim was still there after everything she'd done, and everything he and Root's god now knew she was capable of, and somehow she thought that meant she'd made the right choice.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>the moral of this story is that sometimes you have to be the good person your dog thinks you are. after all you would never want your dog to be disappointed in you.</p><p>(I have a cat and I'm a constant disappointment to her, but that's just how cats are).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. The Past and the Future</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"This had better be good." Unnatural Division Chief Carter sat across the table in the restaurant from Root, Shaw, and Reese, arms folded. "I've got a subway tunnel collapse and an unconscious woman who has yet to show any signs of waking up after two days who you claim is responsible for it without any evidence and you're asking me to believe you on good faith. The three of you who left a burnt down building and a crater behind you last time we met. Oh yeah, and a dismembered arm."</p><p>Despite John's request that she try to stay out of it as much as possible, Root felt obligated to point out: "It wasn't an important building, and we did save your town."</p><p>"Even if we overlook the enormous holes in your story, I can't arrest someone on no charges," Carter said, spinning her coffee mug between her hands. "Do you have even a shred of proof that Kara Stanton was involved in the subway tunnel collapse? An event that you three seem to know an awful lot about."</p><p>"Did you see the back of her hand?" Shaw asked. Root was surprised she'd chimed in given how she'd been half-asleep leaning on Root's shoulder since they got here.</p><p>Shaw had slept for two days after they'd destroyed the shadow demon, waking only twice to down a bottle of water. When she'd woken up a little more, she'd demanded food and had devoured three entire burgers in as many minutes and then passed back out for another twelve hours. Root had suggested she stay home from this meeting, but Shaw had insisted even if she did keep taking naps and acting a little like she was drunk. Or stoned. Root had dealt with the bizarre side-effects of sleep deprivation (which is what this seemed like despite the fact Shaw was sleeping quite a lot) often enough herself, but it was quite something to see it on someone else, especially Shaw.</p><p>Carter must have noticed how washed out Shaw looked, but she hadn't commented. "The back of her hand? You mean the burns?"</p><p>"Shape of a sigil that'll match part of the one you found on that arm we left you in the crater. She wanted to be a warlock for some dumbass reason." Shaw smirked and shot a sideways glance at Root, probably pleased that Root couldn't protest the slander without giving herself away to Carter.</p><p>Carter nodded. "Thought it looked familiar, but that still doesn't link her to the subway."</p><p>"Could you place her in protective custody?" John asked. "The bureau tried to kill her once already, and after everything that happened they won't hesitate to try again."</p><p>"You won't even tell me what this everything that happened was, and no, I can't do that unless I have evidence she's in danger or she requests it and she can't do that while she's unconscious."</p><p>They'd drugged Kara with some of the drug Greer had used on Root. Possibly a little too much. Root's god was confident she would eventually wake up and not suffer any long-term damage, She just wasn't clear on when that might be.</p><p>"Maybe I could talk to her," John suggested.</p><p>"No," Shaw said at the same time Root said, "That's a terrible idea, Lurch."</p><p>Carter blew out an exasperated sigh. "I'll look into the sigil thing and <em>I'll</em> talk to her whenever she wakes up, but if that doesn't get me anywhere, she walks. I won't arrest people on trumped up charges."</p><p>"It figures we got stuck with the only honest cop in the city," Root sighed. "Well, I suppose we'll have to keep an eye on her ourselves."</p><p>"How about instead you all take a vacation from making my job difficult?" Carter suggested.</p><p>Root used the excuse of Shaw not feeling well to escape the meeting early, leaving John to deal with Carter (Shaw was too sleepy to do much more than mumble in protest). A cup of suspicious coffee from a street vendor later and Shaw was able to regain minimal functionality, enough that Root decided they could risk the park even if she really would have preferred they wait another week. She wasn't sure it was a great idea to let Shaw anywhere near the fae with her current tendency to say out loud every unfortunate thing that crossed her mind, but they both wanted the debt settled.</p><p>"I'm not an invalid," Shaw protested without much force as Root steered her towards the park entrance.</p><p>"Of course not, sweetie. Just humor me and take it easy."</p><p>"Hmph."</p><p>It had started snowing again that morning and the pathways in the park were just covered enough that the snow crunched beneath their shoes. There were a lot of people out playing in the snow, but few in the wooded area Root led them towards.</p><p>"Should have brought Reese," Shaw said. "We're both shit at fae politics."</p><p>"He can only be our gracious ambassador to one hostile party at a time, and I'd rather he handle the police chief." She drew Shaw after her off the path. "Watch your step here."</p><p>"<em>You</em> watch <em>your</em> step," Shaw grumbled and then looked immensely pleased with herself like she'd just gotten off the best comeback ever.</p><p>Root hid her smile and kept them on track towards the faerie ring. "It seems someone's already waiting for us," she said. There was a green glow ahead that she recognized. "This should be interesting."</p><p>Sneezy detached themselves from the shadow of a tree outside the ring as they approached. "I've been waiting for you for several days."</p><p>"We were busy," Shaw said. "Really busy. Weird human stuff, you know." Root wondered if maybe she'd over-estimated how functional Shaw was.</p><p>"I do not know," Sneezy said. "Perhaps that is for the best."</p><p>"Wuss."</p><p>Root elbowed Shaw in the ribs. "What Shaw meant to say is that we brought the artifact back here to fulfill her part of the bargain."</p><p>"Yes, that is why I have been waiting here." Sneezy held out their hand. "May I have it?"</p><p>"That depends," Root said, ignoring Shaw's muttered remark about how she was going to let Sneezy have it for real in another minute. "You were at odds with the rest of the fae before, and judging by the fact we found you outside the ring, you still are. If we give you this artifact, will it still fulfill our part of the bargain?"</p><p>Sneezy blinked at her a few times. Confusion, Root's god suggested.</p><p>"I am still fae. A bargain with one of us is a bargain with all of us. That does not change for fulfillment. And when I have this, I will return to faerie."</p><p>"You're the bastards who opened the door and let the demon in," Shaw said as if she'd suddenly remembered. "Not cool, Sneezy."</p><p>"Sneezy?"</p><p>Root elbowed Shaw even harder and Shaw grunted and leaned against her side. Her tendency of late to use Root as a portable mattress almost made up for the rest.</p><p>"Here's your artifact," Root said, pulling it out of her bag. "And this completes our bargain."</p><p>"Wait!" Shaw stood up and snatched the metal crown from Root. "I'm the one who got it back. I get to do the thing." Root rolled her eyes but let her have it. Exhausted Shaw was like a moody toddler.</p><p>"Here you go, dude." Shaw thrust the crown at Sneezy. She lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper that Root could still hear perfectly clearly. "And I still say it was a dick move."</p><p>Sneezy took the crown carefully and examined it, blinking a lot. Root's god had some thoughts on the solemnity of the whole ritual and what the blinks meant, but Root was too impatient to leave to pay much attention. She needed to get Shaw home before she got them in trouble. Again.</p><p>"I had nothing to do with the demon attacking you," Sneezy said at last. "You can discuss the matter with the other fae if you would like, though I doubt it would be a productive conversation." They looked up at Shaw. "I would advise you not to seek out any of the fae until that power you have has left you. There are several ways that could go very wrong."</p><p>"How do we know you guys aren't going to just attack us again?" Shaw asked. Root let that question stand since it was vaguely coherent.</p><p>"You mean once you destroy the artifacts," Sneezy said. "I suppose you don't. I can only suggest that if we seek out your services to lay our kin to rest, you should choose your price wisely. That and--" They turned to look at Root. "--the being that is your master--"</p><p>"Partner." They'd decided the term fit better.</p><p>"You call them a god. The fae have no concept of gods, but if we did we would not use the word for them. We would not think it a strong enough word." Their strange yellow eyes bored into her. "I think few of even my kind understand how powerful they are."</p><p>"What would you call Her then?" Root asked curiously.</p><p>"A monster. Even if they are a benevolent one, for now, and only for you. When I bring the realization of their true power back to the fae, they might be more hesitant to strike."</p><p>"Good to know," Root said quickly to cut off any response from Shaw that would undoubtedly be something inappropriate about what they got up to with the 'monster'. The term was mildly offensive, but she could live with it if it kept the fae respectful. "But why tell us?"</p><p>"I feel somewhat beholden to you, both for removing several menaces from my temporary refuge, and for removing the problem that kept me from returning home. In fact, I believe that I owe you a favor again."</p><p>"Just one?" Shaw asked. "Pfft."</p><p>"<em>Sameen</em>." Root smiled at Sneezy. "She's not at her best at the moment." She really didn't want to lose out on the favor Sneezy had offered them, the one that would mean the fae couldn't try to harm them until it was fulfilled. The one Sneezy had been under no obligation to give.</p><p>"Perhaps she's correct," Sneezy said. "The shadow demon had attacked faerie and posed a grave threat to all my kind. Perhaps faerie as a whole owes Earth a favor, one which Sameen Shaw can call in on behalf of her kind." Sneezy's face contorted in an uncomfortable way, their attempt at a smile, Root realized. "I believe I will be in some trouble for that promise."</p><p>Root tried not to gape at the little fae. They'd just given humanity a blanket protection from the fae. It might not last forever, but it definitely gave them more time to adjust to not having artifacts. She tried to regain her composure.</p><p>"Why give it then?"</p><p>Sneezy stepped between the stones of the faerie ring. "I am fae and I will do anything for faerie, but I believe faerie is better served by a balance of power rather than a surfeit of it. And sometimes what my people need to thrive is to have someone enact a 'dick move', as Sameen Shaw called it, against them."</p><p>"Nice," Shaw said as Sneezy faded from view. "Hey, you don't think Sneezy set us up for all this somehow, do you?"</p><p>"I suppose that's possible, but I don't see how. I wouldn't rule anything out with the fae though." She nudged Shaw with her elbow, more gently this time. "Let's get you home for a nap."</p><p>"I'm not a child."</p><p>"Of course not, sweetie."</p><p>Shaw fell asleep on the subway ride back and remained cranky after Root herded her into the in-between apartment she was still staying in. It didn't hurt to be overly cautious, especially when the bureau knew where Shaw's loft was. Shaw's face lit up when she saw the bed and she barely paused to take her shoes off before climbing in.</p><p>"You're going to sleep with your jeans on?" Root asked the lump under the covers. There was a muttered response that sounded like 'going to sleep with <em>your</em> jeans on', a comment that in other circumstances Root could have had a lot of fun with.</p><p>Shaw raised the blankets enough to look at her. "Are you getting in or what?"</p><p>The invitation was unexpected, but Root wasn't about to pass up on it. The second she got under the covers, Shaw dropped an arm over her and instantly fell asleep. Root dozed off a few minutes later and the next time she woke up, Shaw was still asleep, arm tight around her, and Grim had joined them, lying at Shaw's feet at the end of the bed.</p><p>Her god brushed against her tattoo, warm and gentle, and she fell back asleep.</p><hr/><p>Shaw was aware that she might have said some...regrettable things while she was recovering, so it was a good thing that she had a strict policy of never regretting anything. Her memory of the week after she killed the demon was a bit of a patchwork, but she did remember that she'd seen Sneezy again and that she probably owed Root apology sex for all the things she definitely didn't regret, which she vaguely recalled included using Root as something between a bed and a stuffed animal and possibly attempting to start a fight with the fae.</p><p>It took a week and a half before she felt almost back to normal, proof that humans really weren't equipped for the power of the builders. There was the unfortunate fact that there were a hell of a lot of original artifacts out there that she planned to take apart, and the only comfort she had was that the process of undoing them, while still draining, seemed to take a lot less time for her to recover from than creating an artifact had. Root had outright banned her from even thinking about dismantling an artifact for the rest of the month (Shaw had decided to humor her on that one, partly because she knew Root was perfectly capable of dumping her in some in-between plane for the rest of the month if she didn't agree).</p><p>The one thing Root didn't try to stop her from doing was getting rid of the horrific red burns on her shoulder and arm that were threatening to turn into scars. She didn't mind scars, but the memory of almost ending up as some demon's puppet was one she could do without thinking of every time she moved her arm. The burns were surprisingly resilient, as if they fought back against her removing them, but in the end her arm was back to normal except for patches where the new skin was still raw.</p><p>The first thing she should have done when she recovered was find a new place to live that wasn't Root's hippy forest apartment, but she found herself dragging her feet. She <em>definitely</em> didn't remember anything about some sleep-deprived cuddling that <em>absolutely</em> hadn't happened, but there was something unappealing about going back to an empty bed just yet. She needed to find a new place, but maybe it could be in the same neighborhood. Or building. As long as there weren't weird tree themes involved.</p><p>"You can hear the waterfall <em>all the time</em>," she complained to Root. "It's like the world's most annoying fish tank."</p><p>"I seem to recall you making a promise to me about the waterfall," Root said. "Something about fucking me in the forest tub under it."</p><p>"Did I mention that I don't remember a bunch of things?"</p><p>"This was before all that."</p><p>Shaw gave up on the farce. "Fine. We can go fuck in the forest tub."</p><hr/>
<hr/><p>Which was how she later found herself in the stupid pond-tub in the bathroom straddling Root's lap in the small space between the waterfall and the back rock wall with Root two fingers deep in her. She'd thought that <em>she</em> was supposed to be the one doing the fucking here since Root was the one with the waterfall kink, but it was Root's fantasy so she'd gone along with it without question. She definitely didn't mind the change in plans and she could almost get into the setting since the warm water--shoulder-deep with them sitting down--felt nice and the current and bubbles from the waterfall let her pretend it was a jacuzzi if she shut her eyes.</p><p>"Can She lend a hand?" Root asked, never losing the rhythm with her fingers. "She's dying to get involved."</p><p>"Yeah, sure." Shaw was close enough that just about anything sounded good and she knew from experience just how effective Root's god was when it came to getting both of them off.</p><p>"Put your hand on my back, sweetie."</p><p>Shaw had already been holding onto Root's shoulder so it was easy to slip her hand back and lay her palm against the raised lines of the tattoo. Instantly she could feel something sweeping through her, like heat and electricity sparking her nerves all over. Root's fingers dug into her hip, nails scratching her, and she added a third finger, and fuck, yeah it was pretty great having both of them totally wrecking her at once.</p><p>Usually Root was the one in the middle, so to speak, but Shaw definitely didn't mind this change-up. Root's fingers curled inside her expertly and it felt almost like that thread of heat from her god touched exactly the same place and she forgot about the dumb pond situation long enough to enjoy a damn good orgasm that left her feeling limp and floppy.</p><p>Root graciously let her slump against her for recovery purposes and rubbed wet circles on her back.</p><p>"Thanks for letting Her join in."</p><p>"I think we can safely say that it was definitely my pleasure."</p><p>Root trailed her fingers across Shaw's shoulder, thumb dipping down to brush her collarbone. She did that a lot recently, like she was trying to wipe away any last remnants of the tattoo that had been there so briefly. Shaw thought the whole incident had shaken Root more than her.</p><p>"What did it feel like?" Root asked, her first real acknowledgment of what had happened.</p><p>"Well, it fucking hurt like hell, for starters."</p><p>"Yes, I'd imagine, but I meant...could you feel it? The demon?"</p><p>"For a few seconds, and just faintly. It felt...hungry, malevolent. Not someone I planned to hang out with."</p><p>Root made one more pass with her fingers and then took her hand away. "I would have killed it, you know. If you hadn't gotten away."</p><p>"I know."</p><p>Root smiled at that and Shaw decided it was time for her to get up. She still felt limp though so she only managed to get up to the floor and then flop on her back with her legs still in the water. She heard the water splash as Root got out and then a second later Root was on top of her, straddling her stomach.</p><p>"I was going to suggest we move to the bedroom, but you look like you're not going anywhere." Root rocked her hips against Shaw's abs in a lazy way as she looked down at her. "Are you sure you're not still recovering?"</p><p>"I'm fine," Shaw protested automatically.</p><p>Root didn't say anything and after a second Shaw added, "Maybe I'm still a little tired." It was an admission she hated making since it made her feel weak, but even though she had to force herself to say it, she felt better after.</p><p>"Hmm, well, it just so happens that I have a brilliant idea that requires minimum effort from you while you catch your breath." Root got up and walked away out of Shaw's line of sight. Shaw heard a drawer open in the bedroom, and she figured she knew where this was headed.</p><p>"Here." Root dropped a strap-on harness and dildo right on Shaw's stomach. "Slip into that and I'll keep myself entertained."</p><p>Shaw summoned up enough energy to struggle into the strap-on harness and then lay back down where she'd been with her arms folded behind her head. She was tired, but not tired enough that she couldn't enjoy a show. Root straddled her again, further down over her legs so she could lube up the dildo while leering at Shaw in a way she probably thought was hot but that looked a little goofy. Shaw wasn't sure that she wasn't into it anyway from the way she felt heat rising in her again, though that also could have been the base of the dildo pressing against her.</p><p>She was suddenly much more awake as Root positioned herself over the strap-on and guided the tip of it into herself. Root's eyes shut and her head tilted back, baring her throat as she sank down onto the dildo in a smooth motion. Shaw watched with rapt attention as Root rocked back and forth in tiny motions, adjusting to the fullness.</p><p>"This work for you?" Root asked, her voice thicker than usual.</p><p>"No complaints here," said Shaw, eyes locked on where their bodies met. A few minutes ago she would have thought she was done for the night, but now….</p><p>Root winked horribly at her and then started to move, sliding up and down the length of the dildo slowly at first, and then gaining speed until she was bouncing on it, pushing the base of it into Shaw over and over. Shaw mostly watched, but also obligingly bucked her hips into Root making her gasp and writhe. Shaw wasn't sure if all the moaning was unintentional or for her benefit, but it nicely complemented the visuals.</p><p>She lasted another minute before she couldn't stay passive anymore. As much fun as it was to watch Root riding her, she wanted her hands on her. She touched the ground behind herself with one hand and pulled the floor up into a curved surface she could prop herself up on, yanking Root forwards into her as she sat up. From this position she now had leverage enough to really push back against Root. Her hands grabbed Root's hips and she thrust up hard as Root sank down. Root's skin was still wet from the pond-tub and her hair fell around them in stringy, wet locks. When she raised her head to meet Shaw's gaze her face was slack with pleasure and her eyes dark.</p><p>"I see someone feels better," Root managed to say almost steadily.</p><p>Shaw shut her up by pulling her down and kissing her. Root couldn't ruin the mood with dumbness commentary with Shaw's tongue in her mouth. She dropped one hand down to touch Root's clit and slid the other one around to her back and Root moaned obscenely into her mouth as she came.</p><p>"Well, that was fun," Root said as she leaned her forehead on Shaw's shoulder to recover. "Though I hope you're planning to fix my floor."</p><p>"Depends on if I get to get off again," Shaw said, still rocking her hips into Root gently.</p><p>"You really <em>are</em> feeling better. I guess this was just what the doctor ordered," Root said. "Isn't that right, doctor?"</p><p>Shaw rolled her eyes but didn't disagree. She tapped Root on the thigh. "Let's move back to the other room now. This isn't the most comfortable position." Her improv chair was hurting her back.</p><p>"Kneel and grab the headboard," Shaw said when they got back to the bedroom.</p><p>Root didn't hesitate to obey, but she did look back over her shoulder and said, "I wasn't kidding about the floor, Shaw."</p><p>"I'll fix it later, okay?" Shaw climbed on the bed behind her and put one hand next to Root's on the headboard. The wood from the headboard twisted up and wove itself around Root's wrists and arms in an intricate pattern like tree roots. Shaw nodded in satisfaction; no way was Root escaping that.</p><p>"It matches the decor," Root said, delighted. "I knew you secretly liked it."</p><p>"No fucking way," Shaw growled. She thought about being petty and changing it, but she liked it too much. The apartment was lame, but this was cool and that was all there was to it.</p><p>Root had on that obnoxious little smile of hers. "Your secret is safe with me."</p><p>"Are you finished?" Shaw asked. She positioned herself behind Root without waiting for an answer and examined the dark lines of her tattoo. She wondered what hers would have looked like if the demon had finished it. There was something different about Root's tattoo from the last time she'd seen it, though, and she ran a finger along the side of it on Root's shoulder blade. "Did you change this somehow?"</p><p>Root shivered at her touch. "Only a little. We're in the middle of some design touch-ups. What do you think?" Root pushed back against Shaw, urging her to start.</p><p>The design hadn't changed over all, but the huge, dead tree that had been central to it looked different. The trunk shape had morphed and there were now leaves in the once-dead branches. A vine wound its way around the scar left over from the fight against the warlock.</p><p>"Doesn't that hurt like hell?" Shaw asked. She curled one hand around Root's hip and guided her into a better position.</p><p>"Well, yes, but we've been doing it in tiny increments," Root explained. Her breath stuttered out when Shaw pushed into her from behind. "It can...it can even feel good in the right circumstances, if you know what I mean."</p><p>Shaw could guess, but the tattoo changes were very recent which meant the right circumstances had been happening in the last few weeks. Put together with the large pile of damp towels in the bathroom, it painted a pretty clear picture.</p><p>"You've really been having tattoo sex in the pond-tub the whole time I've been unconscious, huh?" Shaw wasn't sure if she was supposed to have been surprised to learn that Root had been having kinky tattoo sex with a god from another world in a magical forest pond tub only one room away from where Shaw herself had been in a mini-coma, but apparently that was just how her life went now. She rolled her hips and delighted in the way it made Root squirm.</p><p>"You were asleep for days, sweetie. I got bored." Root pushed back into her, demanding more, and Shaw acquiesced easily, one hand braced on the headboard next to Root's bound hands and the other tracing the new additions to her tattoo while her hips rocked up against Root's ass.</p><p>"You mean you were horny."</p><p>"Same difference."</p><p>Shaw gave up on the conversation and devoted all her attention to the much more important task of pounding Root hard enough to make the bed shake. The ominous creaking noises from the bed frame were something she'd have to look into later, but for the time being she tuned them out in favor of listening to Root moan a lot.</p><p>"Does your god want to get in on the action again?" she asked. She moved her hand from the bed frame to Root's stomach, fingers splayed across sweat-damp skin. She slid her other hand down between Root's legs so she could more-intimately feel the strap-on driving into Root. The move pressed her up against most of Root's tattoo and Root cried out, her head falling back to rest on Shaw's shoulder.</p><p>"Root?" Shaw prompted her again. "Your god?"</p><p>"She...she thought you'd never ask," Root murmured.</p><p>Shaw couldn't sense energy the way Root seemed to be able to, but she could almost see the energy threads that unfurled through Root from her tattoo. It was hard to see them clearly with her power, and harder still to not focus on analyzing all the decidedly unsexy and messy bits of biology that the human body was made up of at the same time, but she could definitely feel a foreign piece of something intangible curling through Root. It was vague enough that she might have thought she'd made it up, except for the extreme effect it had on Root.</p><p>Root writhed and moaned and cursed and pushed back into Shaw demandingly, her wrists tugging futilely at the wooden strands restraining her. The tattoo sent a low, buzzing pulse through Shaw's body where she was pressed against it and she faltered, biting down on the back of Root's shoulder as she came.</p><p>Root didn't seem willing or able to wait for her to recover even a little and took over thrusting herself back onto the strap-on until Shaw caught her breath.</p><p>The lethargic feeling she'd had earlier was returning, so Shaw decided they needed to end this quickly. She'd never fallen asleep during sex and Root would never let her live it down if she did now. One hand between Root's legs, fingers rubbing hard exactly where she knew Root liked it, and the other squeezing Root's breast in time with her thrusts, and Root came within seconds.</p><p>"Well, that was nice," Root said when she'd recovered enough to talk. "Can I get my hands back now?"</p><p>"Yeah, just a second." It was easy enough to make the wood from the headboard release Root, but much harder to make it go back to looking exactly the way it had before. Shaw did her best.</p><p>"I suppose it was worth it," Root said ruefully, rubbing the uneven wood with her fingers.</p><p>Shaw pulled out of her, appreciating the wet sound as the dildo slid free, and flopped on the bed. The strap-on harness got kicked off and discarded onto the floor for someone else to deal with later. "And I suppose you can go back to getting yourself off in the tub."</p><hr/>
<hr/><p>Root grinned mischievously at her before lying down next to her on the bed. "So, while you were taking an extended nap--"</p><p>"I <em>did</em> kill the most powerful demon ever, you know."</p><p>"Yes, you did, and that was very hot, but then you slept for forever and I had a lot of time to think about what happens next."</p><p>Shaw braced herself for a conversation she wasn't sure she had enough energy for. "Root, listen--"</p><p>"I was thinking that we go after the rest of the artifacts that the bureau has first. They'll still be reeling from our last visit so they'll never expect it."</p><p>Shaw stared stupidly at the ceiling until her brain successfully changed gears. "True, but they'll also probably have more security and be on high alert."</p><p>"That makes it more exciting."</p><p>"You just want to blast another hole in the bureau."</p><p>"And you don't?"</p><p>Root had her there. "I'll think about it."</p><p>"Don't you mean you'll sleep on it?"</p><p>Shaw glowered, even if she really was tired there was no call for that. "If that fire elemental spreads the word, we'll probably have unnaturals coming to us soon. Like Sneezy said, it might be a good way to make some deals."</p><p>"Good point."</p><p>Shaw's eyelids were drooping with exhaustion which was why she wasn't able to prevent Root from leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. "Hey!" She wiped her cheek in annoyance.</p><p>"Guess how many times I got to do that while you were passed out."</p><p>"Gross." She didn't comment on the fact Root stayed more or less draped on top of her. Pushing her off would have required effort. "I'm taking a nap. If you try that again, I'll meld both your arms into the wall."</p><p>"I'll disintegrate the wall."</p><p>"So I can't mess up your headboard even a little but you can destroy an entire wall?"</p><p>"It's <em>my</em> wall, Shaw." Root's face softened. "Go to sleep. I'll be good. Cross my heart."</p><p>Shaw was glad in a jumbled, tired brain-fogged way that Root hadn't added the next line. She shut her eyes and pretended to already be asleep when Root tucked her head up under her chin.</p><p>This was, she thought hazily, probably the closest she'd been to some kind of normality since, damn, all the way since Fairfield. That year before she'd found Root again had been frustrating and unfulfilling and had felt very temporary. There was still a lot to sort out, but she wasn't dreading the near future anymore. Things felt like they were back the way they belonged.</p><p>All things considered, she didn't think they'd done so bad.</p><hr/><p>Winter was finally starting to ease up by the time they made it back to the town in the middle of nowhere where this had all started. Root would rather never have gone back there, as she was more than content to burn down parts of her past and walk away without a backwards glance, but her god had been the one to make the suggestion and Root had grudgingly admitted that it made sense. Shaw and Reese had also not been enthusiastic, but Reese had eventually agreed that it seemed fitting, and then Shaw had given in.</p><p>The field with the rundown mansion that Root had briefly lived in didn't look anything like she remembered it. There were still the burnt remains of the mansion itself--blackened beams and a few surviving walls forming the building's corpse--and most of the tall grass hadn't grown back yet from where she and the other warlock had destroyed the field. The small crater where the warlock had blown herself up in a last attempt to take them out was there, filled with muddy water from melted snow. Shaw flipped it off as they passed by.</p><p>The thing that hadn't changed at all was the enormous dead tree that had housed Her artifact for so many years. Root's stomach twisted with distaste when she saw the horrible thing still standing with only the scar from where Shaw had removed the artifact and the slightest scorch marks on it.</p><p>"Too cursed to die," Shaw said when she saw it.</p><p>"I think it must be whatever they did to it to harden the wood," Root said, though she silently agreed with Shaw. "Some form of protection spell from an artifact if I had to guess."</p><p>"So basically it's cursed," Shaw said again.</p><p>They came to a halt in front of the dead tree and John set down the pack he'd been holding. "Here?"</p><p>"Here will do," Root agreed.</p><p>"Still don't get why this is a good place for them," Shaw said as she helped John unpack the bag. She laid the large wooden box that held the remains of the builder's artifact in it on the cold ground. "Funerals aren't my thing and I don't get why you'd want to bury the artifact remains in this shitty place anyway. I'd think this would be the last place you'd want imprisoned unnaturals to end up."</p><p>"We're not burying them the way we'd bury a corpse," Root explained again. She watched John pull out more boxes, each one containing wherever dust or scraps were left of one of the original artifacts they'd dealt with in the last few months. There'd been many, many more than this, but some of the living unnaturals had wanted to keep the artifact remains. "There's nothing left of who or what was in these. What we're burying is their prisons. Think of this place as a monument of our sins--ours and the builders'."</p><p>Shaw rolled her eyes. "That is way too dramatic a way to put it. Let's just get this over with."</p><p>The ground was still too frozen for digging a hole by normal means, but Shaw only needed to touch the dirt briefly to create a shallow pit that they could put the wooden boxes into. John got the duty of standing in the pit while the other two handed the boxes down to him. Once they were all in place, Shaw covered up the pit again. She didn't go out of her way to tidy it up and the square patch of disturbed dirt was still evident.</p><p>"Please tell me we don't have to say something now," Shaw said as they all looked at the dirt. "Can we just be done?"</p><p>"We should put something here to mark the location," John suggested. "Like a grave marker."</p><p>"I got this." Shaw didn't wait for a second opinion, and jogged over to the dead tree and put her hand on it. There was only the faintest blue glow in her hands as the tree twisted and bent itself under her direction. The wood flowed across the ground to the dirt patch and reformed there into the shape of...a giant statue of Grim, which seemed to be Shaw's go-to when making art with her powers.</p><p>"It's...very nice," Root said carefully. "But is Grim really appropriate for this particular place?"</p><p>"I guess not," Shaw admitted with regret. She traced a finger over the snarling jaws. "Anyone have a better suggestion? I could do the McDonald's M or something."</p><p>"Too far in the other direction," Root said. "How about a tombstone or something traditional?" Shaw hadn't taken all the wood from the tree and it gaped openly like its guts had been torn out. She appreciated how dead it looked this way.</p><p>Shaw concentrated and the wood reformed under her hands. When she stepped back there was a long, flat grave marker made out of wood that looked like it had been polished. There were words carved into the plaque that read: "May you never need forgiveness for your crimes." Root exchanged a confused look with John.</p><p>Shaw shrugged. "It was just a thing the builder said. I thought it sounded cool. Will that do?"</p><p>"I think so," Root said, and She agreed with her. And to think Shaw had accused <em>her</em> of being dramatic about this.</p><p>"Good, then let's get back to civilization."</p><p>They caught a coach out of town before it got dark, only pausing briefly in town for John to say hi to Doris the innkeeper. (Shaw had thought she might not be welcome there currently with her powers, and Root had kept her company outside, not particularly feeling in the mood to socialize).</p><p>"How many more artifacts are left?" Shaw asked as they all braced themselves in the bouncing carriage.</p><p>"I have a dozen more on my list," Root said. "But I suspect I'm missing some. We may have to resign ourselves to never knowing if we got all of them."</p><p>"Hmm." Shaw didn't look pleased, but after a moment she shrugged. "Can only do the best we can when we're working against a clock." None of them were sure when her powers would run out, but so far they'd remained strong. Root thought Shaw was starting to enjoy them, though it was clear the strain of using them for anything as complicated as destroying artifacts wasn't meant for a human to bear. She'd be glad when Shaw didn't have to worry about burning herself out anymore, even if there were some very nice benefits from Shaw's powers. Maybe if they got back in time tonight they could revisit some of those.</p><p>John fell asleep once they switched to a bus in the next town, and they moved to the other end of the bus (empty except for them) to let him sleep. Root's god hovered in her awareness, glad that they'd left that place behind and very interested in whatever it was Root had in mind for all three of them later. Shaw spent a lot of the trip looking out the window, lost in thought, and Root stayed quiet and watched her.</p><p>"The bureau isn't going to give up on making warlocks," Shaw said. "With the artifacts gone, they'll probably be even more interested."</p><p>"You were the one saying you needed something to do after we finished with the artifacts. Maybe sabotaging the bureau can be your new job."</p><p>"That'll pay even worse than my last one. But maybe."</p><p>"Good thing you don't need to pay rent anymore." Shaw had kept threatening to move out of Root's apartment for months without making any effort to find a new place, until the simple solution that really should have occurred to them sooner became obvious. Since the apartment was located in the in-between world, there wasn't anything else around it like there was in the real world and it was very simple for Shaw to carve out a massive expansion to the place that was more to her taste. The new rooms still had a tendency to pop up forest-like elements in places, but Shaw had mostly made peace with that and also had a large pair of pruning shears on hand.</p><p>"I miss having windows though," Shaw said. "The creepy yard didn't work out so well."</p><p>Without sunlight or anything resembling the outdoors, the yard had been a cave. The only good thing that came out of it was a path Shaw had carved out that stretched far back into the strange stone that made up much of the world. It wasn't fancy, but it was wide enough for Root to take Bacchanalia out for a ride from time to time. (The fact that the path must have taken Shaw weeks to make in secret wasn't lost on Root and she appreciated what that meant almost more than she enjoyed her rides).</p><p>"I was thinking we could get the apartment above ours in the real world when the current tenant moves out," Root said. "I'd have to make some kind of portal like the door so we could get between them, but I think it could work. And I think we could...encourage them to look for another place sooner rather than later." She'd been plotting with Her about how to use their powers to create a poltergeist situation.</p><p>"That would be cool," Shaw said. "It's probably expensive as hell though and I'm unemployed."</p><p>"I can deal with all that, or rather, She can. Think of it as Her thank you present for helping with the artifacts."</p><p>Shaw seemed mollified by that suggestion.</p><p>It was full dark by the time they got back, and they were all tired enough that John didn't stick around for dinner. Shaw grabbed them some pizza from one of the places still open in the middle of the night and they ate it in the unnecessarily large kitchen that Shaw had made herself (figuring out the logistics of getting electricity to work on this world had been a fun challenge for Root).</p><p>"Maybe we can go on vacation when all the artifacts are accounted for," Root said as they finished their late dinner. "See the sights on other planes."</p><p>"Thought warlocks were frowned on in other planes," Shaw said. "Wouldn't we be starting a war?"</p><p>"There'd have to be some negotiations," Root agreed, though she doubted they'd get permission to go many places. The other unnaturals were all deeply uneasy about Her powers, especially since She had a warlock. "We could always go back to Her world."</p><p>"I'll pass on that one."</p><p>Root let that go for now. She wasn't too worried that she could convince Shaw over time with the right incentives.</p><p>"What are you going to do when we finish with the artifacts?" Shaw asked. "You two have more bad plans I'll end up regretting?"</p><p>"One or two, maybe. She's not opposed to helping keep the warlock situation here in check, and acting as a deterrent to prevent other species from taking advantage of that." She also thought she might check in on the crafters again. She might not be one anymore, but she didn't want the bureau to round them up either. Maybe she'd drop in on Harper soon.</p><p>"Huh. That might actually work." Shaw got up and threw away the trash from their dinner. "I'm beat. You staying up a while?"</p><p>"No, I'm tired, too." And if she stayed up she might miss out on getting to sleep next to Shaw, something she still hadn't stopped being thrilled by.</p><p>She was even more thrilled that Shaw was in the rare mood for curling up around her back with her breath warm on Root's neck and a casual arm slung over Root's waist. Root didn't think she'd be getting a lot of sleep tonight.</p><p>"Did it bother you? Going back there?" Shaw asked in the darkness.</p><p>"A little, but not enough that I'm going to dwell on it." Her god was free and she could feel Her warmth in her tattoo blending in with Shaw's warmth. "Why do you ask?"</p><p>"Seemed like that sort of thing that might bother someone, I guess," Shaw said a little defensively. "And I thought maybe that was something I was supposed to ask since we're...you know…." She trailed off.</p><p>Root was glad Shaw couldn't see the huge smile on her face. "Yes, Sameen, I know."</p><p>"Well...good." Shaw shifted a little, getting more comfortable. "I'm going to sleep now."</p><p>Root was right that she didn't get a lot of sleep that night in the course of enjoying the twin warmths she was wrapped in, but, even though she was so tired the next day that Shaw was exasperated, it was worth it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>While you could definitely make some kind of drinking game out of the number of chapters I end with shoot falling asleep together, three times in one chapter is kind of excessive, oops.</p><p>Anyway, I think that's most everything wrapped up. I'm not really planning to write more in this AU though never say never. Hope you all enjoyed it.</p><p>In terms of future fics, I've actually made a lot of progress on the last vampire au fic in the last few days so hopefully I'll finish that up soon. The gideon the ninth au poi fic I've been working on is maybe half done? It's coming along. So keep an eye out for those in the future.</p><p>Thank you all for reading!</p>
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